October Suite: A Novel

By Maxine Clair

The debut novel by the author of Rattlebone. “Told in a melody all its own, this story touches many lovely and unexpected notes.” —Elizabeth Strout, #1 New York Times bestselling author
 
It is 1950 and October Brown is a twenty-three-year-old first-year teacher thanking her lucky stars that she found a room in the best boardinghouse for Negro women teachers in Wyandotte County, Kansas. During an affair with an unhappily married handyman, October becomes pregnant.
 
With job in jeopardy and her reputation in tatters, October goes back to Ohio to be with her family: her older sister, Vergie, and her aunts who raised the sisters after their mother was killed by their father. After giving birth, she gives the child to Vergie and her husband to raise as their own, then returns to Kansas City to rebuild her life. But something is missing—and, apparently too late, October realizes what she has done . . .
 
The Midwest, the flourishing of modern jazz, and the culture of segregation form a compelling historical backdrop for this timeless and universal tale of one person’s battle to understand and master her own desires, and to embrace the responsibilities and promise of mature adulthood. In October Suite, Clair “has skillfully brought lyricism and word-play to her first novel, a family saga filled with secrets, redemption, and rivalry, as two sisters try to reclaim bonds forged in early childhood tragedy” (Library Journal).
 
“Maxine Clair deserves our admiration for this beautifully written and humane novel.” —The Washington Post
 
“A beautifully imagined novel that pulses with all the colors and sounds of the lives we live.” —Marita Golden, author of The Wide Circumference of Love

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781572844841

Maxine Clair

Maxine Clair was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. She is the author of the poetry collection Coping with Gravity and the novel The October Suite. On its first publication, in 1994, Rattlebone received both the Literary Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. Clair is a professor emerita at George Washington University.

Book preview

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Copyright © 2014 Agate Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without express written permission from the publisher.

Ebook edition 1.0 April 2014

ISBN-13: 978-1-57284-484-1

Agate Digital is an imprint of Agate Publishing. Agate books are available in bulk at discount prices. For more information visit agatepublishing.com.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

chapter 7

chapter 8

chapter 9

chapter 10

chapter 11

chapter 12

chapter 13

chapter 14

chapter 15

chapter 16

chapter 17

PART TWO

chapter 18

chapter 19

chapter 20

chapter 21

chapter 22

chapter 23

chapter 24

chapter 25

chapter 26

chapter 27

chapter 28

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE

chapter 1

In the Midwest, October comes in when the pale coverlet of sky lifts away, exposing an eternity of deep and certain blue. The sun no longer stares, merely glances and makes long shadows much like the uneven fading of green from trees just before the lesser pigments fire-light the whole outdoors. The air cools to crisp, carries sound farther. Last pears ripen and fall, ferment on the ground; the aroma of their wine mixes with the pungency of leaf smoke from nowhere and everywhere. At nightfall, the wing-song shrill of crickets announces that this season has a natural pathos to it, the brief and flaming brilliance of everything at the climax of life moving toward death.

October Brown had named herself for all of that. Unwittingly at first. When she began occasionally calling herself October, she was only ten years old. Others said it was ridiculous, said she was nobody trying to be somebody. But she made convincing noises about given names, how you could give one to yourself, how it could be more like you than your real name. She never dared say she hated the name that her father had saddled on her, never said the new name had anything to do with the memory of her mother, who had lost her life. Instead she had mentioned all the strange names of people they knew, like Daybreak Honor, and a classmate’s aunt, Fourteen. The pastor of their church had named his daughter Dainty. Usually that fact had made people stop and consider.

Then when she was girl-turned-grown-seventeen, struck by her own strangeness and by the whole idea of seasons, she had put it on like a coat and fastened it around her. October was her name.

Midmorning, on a flaming day in that season—a Saturday—October sat in the upstairs kitchenette at Pemberton House, sewing on her black iron Singer. It was 1950. She was twenty-three, and thanking her lucky stars for a room in the best house for Negro women teachers in Wyandotte County. Situated in the middle of the block on Oceola Avenue, the two-story white clapboard set the standard for decent, with its deep front yard and arborlike pear trees, its clipped hedges and the painted wicker chairs on the porch.

From her window she could look down on the backyard and see Mrs. Pemberton’s precious marigolds bunched along the back fence, and in front of them, a few wilting tomato plants and short rows of collards that waited to be tenderized by the first frost in Mr. Pemberton’s garden.

A few months before, on the very same June day that Cora had pushed her to take advantage of the vacancy coming up at Pemberton House, October Brown had knocked on the door, hoping. Word was that you had to know somebody. For her cadet-teacher year at Stowe School, she had lived with the Reverend Jackson and his wife. Not so bad, but farther away and further down the scale of nice. Mr. Pemberton, in undershirt and suspenders, had opened the door, but his wife, Lydia Pemberton—gold hoops sparkling, crown of silvery braids—had invited her in.

We don’t take nothin but schoolteachers, Mrs. Pemberton had said. When October explained that indeed, she was a teacher, Mrs. Pemberton had looked her up and down.

Whereabouts?

And October had told her about her cadet year at Stowe, her room at the Jacksons’ place, mentioned Chillicothe, Ohio, where she had grown up, and—because Mrs. Pemberton had seemed unmoved and uninterested so far—spoken of her two aunts who had raised her and her sister Vergie with good home training.

Y’all are getting younger every year. You know any of the other girls here? Mrs. Pemberton had asked.

October explained that Cora Joycelyn Jones had been her lead teacher at Stowe, that they had become good friends. The mention of an established connection to a recognized good citizen had finally satisfied Mrs. Pemberton.

Follow me, she said, and led October on a two-story tour of hardwood floors and high ceilings, French Provincial sitting room (smoke blue), damask drapes and lace sheers, mahogany dining table that could comfortably seat twelve, at least, two buffets, china closets, curio cabinets full of whatnots. Upstairs, all the women’s rooms—Mrs. Pemberton did tap lightly before she charged in—had highly polished mahogany or oak beds, tables, desks, quilts or chenille bedspreads, no-nails-allowed papered walls. Photographs, though, on desks, and floor lamps and wing chairs, stuffed chairs, venetian blinds and valances. Then she showed her the kitchenette, a larger bedroom with a two-burner and a tiny icebox and you see the sun goes down right outside that window right there.

And as they went back down the stairs, Mrs. Pemberton told her in no uncertain terms that she and Mr. Pemberton operated a decent house, that nobody under their roof smoked or drank, and that no men were allowed upstairs, but that the women could have company in the sitting room downstairs. Yes, October understood.

Yes, she was lucky to have her kitchenette.

Since daybreak of that October Saturday, she had been up sewing, fiddling with the buttons on the lightweight wool suit that she planned to wear to the first Du Bois Club meeting that afternoon. She had nearly finished reinforcing the zipper when she felt the loud thump of something entirely too heavy against the back of the house.

She wrapped herself more tightly in her housecoat and went to the window. Without raising the shade higher, she could see a man—muscular, youngish—in the yard below, struggling to shift a ladder closer to her window.

She had seen him before. One morning, weeks earlier, she had been waiting on the porch for her ride to school with Cora, and she had been nervous about the ride. Cora was her friend, had been her mentor. Still, these were October’s first days on her own in the classroom, and Cora was sure to ask about the supplies that October had forgotten to order. In the presence of Cora’s boyfriend—he was driving them to school that day—she would feel even dumber. Too bad she had already said yes to the ride, or she would have skipped it.

And too, at the dinner table the night before, Albertine Scott—one of the other teachers—had offered to turn October’s hair under with a straightening comb, a sure putdown, since it was obvious that October had taken pride in what a little Hair Rep and water could do. Seasoned teachers were like that, though—ready to tap cadets on the shoulder and point out the least little misstep in or out of the classroom. In the name of caution, they could brew terror with stories of cadets who dared dream that they would swim through their first stand-alone year but couldn’t even float, and went on to become elevator operators. Seasoned teachers would do that. Except for Cora. October had suffered nothing like that from Cora. Woman-after-my-own-heart. Sisterfriend.

And so, thus preoccupied on the porch that morning as she waited for her ride, October had let her eyes wander in the shadows of the arborly front yard. And saw, suddenly, a man out there, dappled by sunplay through the leaves, a hidden picture in a trees-and-grass puzzle, dark arms in a pale undershirt, bib overalls faded blue, his thumbs hooked into the straps. A man turning to go, a mystery vanishing, just somebody taking a break from his work on the Pembertons’ half-finished retaining wall out near the street.

She wondered if he’d been there in the yard all along, watching her. She didn’t look directly at him, but observed that he had perched himself on top of a mound of fieldstones and begun eating something that the wind carried as hickory smoke. He had flung his hand as if to say hi, being friendly, she thought, and she flung her hand, too. But then she saw the swarm of gnats and realized her mistake. He was swatting flies.

Later, when she walked with Cora and Ed to Ed’s car, Ed had stopped to admire the man’s handiwork, but the man’s faded-blue back was turned, busy, and he didn’t even look up. He had a fresh haircut. Neat around the edges. His undershirt had seen a lot of washings.

This was the same man. Looking down from her window, she saw that at the moment he was focused on the bottom rungs. Impulsively, just as his head tilted up, she stepped back out of sight and pulled her window shade all the way down.

A few minutes went by, and she could hear the ladder scraping the house, approaching her window. Then a knock on the window. She got up from the sewing machine again and let up the shade. Head and shoulders right there on the other side of the glass and screen, there he was. Edges of very white teeth showed in a round face the color of pecans and just as shiny. A face not particularly piqued, either. And so it was a little surprising when he did a quick twirl with a screwdriver and yelled through the glass, You didn’t have to pull down the shade—I don’t go around peeping in windows.

Though she understood and felt a little guilty, she palmed the air and hunched her shoulders as if to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about. He did a little up-up motion with his thumb, she hurried to raise the window.

His mouth looked like it wanted to smile. You don’t have to worry, I’m just putting up storm windows, he said. Can you give me a hand and unhook your screen?

Sure, she said, and undid the four metal hook-and-eyes that held in the screen.

He pulled the screen out, tossed it like a saucer to the ground. Stay right there for a minute, do you mind?

Back down the ladder he went, then climbed slowly up again, lugging a heavy storm window in one hand. This time he stood higher on the ladder so that they were nearly face to face.

Mr. Pemberton’s got too many windows, he said and chuckled a little, held on to the wood-frame window, looked right at her too long. She didn’t know whether to smile or frown. What was he looking at? But anyway there was his easy, fleshy mouth to focus on, maybe.

Automatically her hands went to smooth her hair and at the same time cover the white splash of vitiligo on her cheek. But then her thoughts caught up. This was her room. He really had no business up here, and she didn’t have to look like she was dressed for school.

He wore a rag of a shirt with rolled sleeves and no buttons, no collar, so that he might as well have been bare from the waist up. Repositioning the large storm window, he was—for two seconds—a three-dimensional man in a window. Focused on his task now, he bit his bottom lip with those white teeth and hoisted the window into position. Her eyes caught on the patch of fine hairs that parted just below his navel where his dark pants rode loosely on his hips. He was short muscular in a smooth, curvy way.

When I slide this into the frame, you hook the top and bottom, okay? he said.

He slid in the storm window and tapped it solidly with his hands. She hooked all four of the hooks.

Thanks, he said through the glass. You’re handy to have around. And he disappeared down the ladder, whistling something he probably made up.

October finished the zipper, pressed the suit, took a bath in the hall bathroom, dripped her way back, fighting the impulse to whistle. Whistling woman, cackling hen, always come to no good end. She laid the suit on the bed and congratulated herself. The Vogue Pattern Company wouldn’t know hers from the one in the picture: nutmeg with a straight skirt, kick pleats, a cropped jacket; double-breasted, with covered buttons and self-belt with the special pewter buckle she had retrieved from one of her aunt Maude’s throwaways.

Noon came and she put it on, set off the collar with a white rayon blouse. She saw herself on her way to the Du Bois Club meeting, coming down to the front room and encountering tall skinny Albertine. Or, better yet, walking across the lawn of the YWCA, right past proper Mary Esther and the others dressed in their serious-and-dedicated blouses and reasonable-navy or practical-beige skirts, their correct nylons and low pumps. And she smiled at the mirror, glad not to see a schoolmarm standing there.

The whistling started somewhere downstairs, then made its way up the steps and stopped; then footsteps continued softly to her door. He knocked. She wondered what excuse he would have for being up here.

As soon as she opened the door, he leaned in. You interested in helping me do the other windows? he asked, face full of eyes. Now that they stood on the same ground, he looked like he could be the tiniest inch shorter than she was.

She began stuttering out the explanation that she had something else to do that afternoon, and his face broke into a big grin.

Boy, by the look on your face, it’s a good thing I wasn’t counting on you.

Teasing. Her face felt hot.

I just came up to show you how to get some air if you want to. He brushed right past her and went to the window.

See this little lever here?

She followed him.

Just unhook the bottom, slide the lever, and it props the window open just enough to let in a little air.

Okay, she said. Thanks. I never want to feel like I’m sealed in for the winter. Not yet, anyway.

Wide strides and he was back at the door. Thank you, he said. It can be a job. Lydia Pemberton’s got too many windows. Was he nervous?

My name’s James Wilson, he said. I help out around here sometimes. You must be a new teacher.

Yes, I am. October Brown, she said and neither of them put out a hand. She found the hem of the nutmeg jacket to straighten. It wasn’t all right to say nothing, and she didn’t see how she could just tell him to leave. It was good that he didn’t try to make some smart remark about her name, and they stood there too long not talking.

It’s probably going to be too hot for storm windows today, so thanks for showing me ... she said.

Where’re you from?

I’m from Ohio, she said.

Columbus?

No, Chillicothe. You’ve probably never heard of it.

I’ve got a buddy from Akron, he said Nice place.

I never went to Akron, but I hear it’s nice.

He stepped into the hallway. She took the doorknob into her hand and pushed the door a little. Across the hall, Cora opened her door and saw them. Saw them, October thought, because Cora’s brow furrowed just a little.

Cora threw Hi, James in his direction and threw Ed’s on the way, you about ready? into October’s wide-open kitchenette.

With Cora watching, James turned to October and took in her outfit. You look like something out of a magazine, he said, easy with his loose jive, now that he had an audience.

Thanks, October said, trying to smile. She all but closed the door. James finally smiled his way down the hall, whistled his way down the stairs.

Cora called, Let me get my purse and I’m ready, and disappeared.

October left her door ajar and rubbed her sweaty palms together.

Downstairs in the front room, sure enough, Albertine and Mary Esther sat all prim on the French Provincial loveseat. October thought to wait on the porch, but Cora swept into the sitting room, and October followed.

Albertine remarked, You all look very nice.

I’m already excited just by this weather, Mary Esther said.

Albertine wore a shirtwaist—flannel it looked like—of a new color, cranberry, with pearls, and her hair was finger-waved to her shoulders. Mary Esther in forest green and little gold earrings, too. No navy. No beige.

Thanks, October said. You do, too.

Looks like everybody had the same idea, Cora said. Break into fall.

October observed that Cora could wear a gunny sack and look good. Their principal at Stowe had once asked October if they were related. Cora was a head shorter, slimmer, too, with Ethiopian features, but she and October had the same dark complexions, only October had the mark of vitiligo. Same thick hair, too, only Cora wouldn’t be caught dead with hers nappy.

Mrs. Pemberton came in from the kitchen, untying her apron. My, my, my—don’t we look like a parade, she said.

And then Ed’s horn blared twice. Here’s Ed, Cora said.

Don’t be too late tonight, Mrs. Pemberton said. Church in the morning.

October stooped to look through the front window. Ed had pulled his old Buick up to the curb and was getting out, saying something to James, who stood in the yard with his foot up casually on the low stone wall that he had built with his own hands.

Coming, coming, Cora said mostly to herself, and snapped her purse closed. Ready? to the others.

They all went out to the porch as Ed approached, calling Hey bob-a-ree-bop to them, laughing. I don’t know if I can stand all this fineness riding in my backseat.

Don’t hurt his feelings, y’all, Cora said loudly. Smile like you’re flattered.

They laughed.

Sorry, but Norman is coming by to get me and Mary Esther, Albertine said. News to everybody. And she asked, Who’s that with you?

Out at the curb, a young man had gotten out of Ed’s car and was leaning against it, hugging a black case, some kind of musical instrument. October scanned the arbor. James had disappeared.

That’s Lonny, Cora said.

Leon, my brother, Ed finished. I’m dropping him off overtown.

Mrs. Pemberton and retired Miss Dumas came out to the porch, too. Hello there, mister, Mrs. Pemberton said. Ed stepped up onto the porch and took Mrs. Pemberton’s hand.

When are you going to make one of your pineapple upside-down cakes again? he asked.

Chile, hush up. She brushed him away.

But Miss Dumas, ninety going on forty, spoke up. If Cora ain’t bakin your cakes, somethin’s rotten in Denmark, and they all knew that she wasn’t talking dessert.

Ed took a breath. Wup, time to go. October followed him and Cora down the porch steps, out the bricked path through the yard’s shade of pear trees, where no James could possibly have disappeared without her noticing what direction, past the very decent stone wall to the curb.

Hi, Ed’s brother said to October, and, Hey, Cora.

Ed introduced them. Leon shifted his black case. Your name’s October? You must have a birthday coming up soon.

Rather than try to come back, October smiled. Ed held the back door for her and she climbed into the backseat.

Cora waved Leon into the car. Her birthday’s in April. Just get in the backseat and be quiet little brother, she said. They chuckled; doors slammed and the Buick pulled into the flaming noon traffic of Oceola Avenue.

According to long tradition the Du Bois Club—Negro teachers in primary grades—kicked off the school year at the Yates Branch of the YWCA Tudor house, immaculate lawn, impressive verandah, it buzzed that afternoon when the Douglass School group outdid itself with a buffet under the yellow canopy on the lawn: everything from shrimp salad to chocolate cream pies.

The teachers met and mingled, auditioned their clothes and sampled the spread. Then they got serious. What real issues had been covered by the powers-that-be during the state meeting in Topeka last month? The word was that the white schools were getting funds for experimenting with a new way to improve reading skills. Reading modules, they were called. The women broke into groups, put brains to work on theme and project and came back with solid plans for their own reading modules.

They would need wood: crates, perhaps. And they all knew somebody who could saw beveled angles and nail two pieces of wood together to make benches and tables. They could come up with cushions themselves. But they would need money to pull it off at all the schools.

October thought that her group—teachers from Stowe—came up with the best idea for fund-raising. A fashion show. And, she tried to tell sixty serious teachers, all the fashions can be auctioned off. That way ..., and she went on to explain in detail how to make double the money.

Eyes rolled. Nobody liked the idea. Instead they all went for the same old have-a-cabaret plan: sell tickets, sell food and drinks, raffle off a door prize. Next time, she thought.

As the meeting wound down and they went their ways, October admired this group of women. They were dedicated, willing to take money from their own pockets to fill in the slight to their schools when the Board of Education turned its ever-deaf ear. Willing to sacrifice in unspoken ways, too.

She went inside to call a cab. As she passed through the hallway one of the Douglass teachers called from the kitchen, Want to take home some cake?

No, thanks, October called back. It was good to be a part of something. She found the little office with the phone and got in line, three women ahead of her. Mary Esther came up and asked why she wasn’t riding with Cora.

October didn’t feel like explaining all the reasons why Cora and Ed didn’t need a third thumb. It brought up the married-woman-teacher stipulation in their contracts—that item that the superintendent had pointed to when he hired her. She had seen the dubious advantage that day and filed it away as one more thing to live with, one of the unspoken sacrifices. And here was Cora waiting six years for Ed, who had never gotten around to the ring and the question because—theoretically at least—if she got married, Cora could lose her job.

It didn’t matter that the rule had been struck down in the thirties and was no longer practiced in most places; in Wyandotte County, it was the law. Superintendent Arledge’s law. Only single women for the Negro schools. Dime a dozen. If you marry, you must resign. Maybe you’ll be hired back as a permanent substitute. Maybe not.

Rather than go into all of that with Mary Esther, October told her, They aren’t going that way—you want to split a cab? and Mary Esther said sure.

Mary Esther should have understood. As the women had begun packing up, October had watched Albertine parade herself across the Yates lawn and climb into the front seat of Norman’s cab. Norman had looked far too pleased for a cabdriver merely picking up a fare. And Mary Esther couldn’t help herself. She had caught October’s eye and tapped her ring finger. Norman was a married man, and Albertine was settling.

No wonder Mrs. Pemberton was such a housemother, keeping tabs, keeping the chicks in line, not so different from the way October’s own aunts had been. Aunt Frances, the take-no-prisoners general; Aunt Maude, the reasonable lieutenant. Frances and Maude Cooper, her big-boned, ginger-colored saviors, had always drawn clear lines that she and Vergie crossed at their peril. And hadn’t she and Vergie been a handful, tall like their aunts, but blackberries like their father. Not that black skin was a curse, per se, but who could imagine a blessing in anything from him?

They had survived. She was twenty-three, making a life of her own. Vergie was married and happy in Ohio. October dialed zero for the operator, who would give her the number for a cab.

Monday evening, not a week later, October had another little brush with James Wilson. She and Cora went upstairs together from school to find an RCA record in its brown sleeve propped against October’s door. O.B.—J.W. had been scribbled in pencil on the sleeve. October did her best to pretend Who-on-earth? What-is-this?, but she knew and knew that Cora knew, too. When it came to a man and a woman, Cora would never resort to tact.

What’s his problem? Cora said. October had barely had time to see that the record was Billy Eckstine’s Orchestra, Eckstine featuring Sarah Vaughan.

She said to Cora, Wait a minute, let me see what it is.... We don’t even know...

Why can’t he just give it to you instead of leaving it out here for everybody to see? Cora said. I know Mrs. Pemberton didn’t let him up here for this.

It’s just a record, Cora, October said. I don’t know—maybe he thinks I like Billy Eckstine. Maybe he had two of them. Lame, she knew.

I’ve been meaning to ask you why he keeps showing up here without calling you?

Keeps showing up?

Cora, I just met him last week. He wasn’t ‘showing up’—he was installing storm windows. He left me a record to listen to. What’s wrong with that?

Lately Cora had been dropping hints to October that Ed had been dropping hints about a job he might take in St. Louis, teaching industrial arts and coaching the basketball team. Better money. Good opportunity. In Cora’s spillovers about Ed, October had heard her attempts to sound cheery—a sure sign of worry. Probably Cora worried that she had turned into a convenience. Ed might just walk away. So no wonder Cora would be irritated if any man was doing anything halfway hidden with any woman.

October quickly stuck the record under her arm and slipped through her door, leaving Cora and her skepticism in the hallway. Once she was in her room, she put the record on the bed, weighing when might be the best time to play it.

She slipped her feet out of her pumps, rolled down her stockings, and inspected her legs. Fine. No vitiligo. Once she had finally understood that it wouldn’t kill her, she had discovered that vitiligo was an ancient disease, benign for the most part. People said that even the Bible mentioned it. Yet no one knew why a patch of skin cells would suddenly stop making brown pigment or how to trigger them to function again. At the moment, though, she had one visible spot on her left cheek. Perhaps there was something to the wives’-tale theories about nervous strain.

Barefoot she padded across the cold wood floor and lit the two-burner, then filled her teakettle with water. When she turned to face the room again, she saw it anew, the way a stranger might see it. Her bed in neat blue chenille. Her worn-out record player near the window. The tapestry upholstery on the stuffed chair in the comer looked more steadfast than easy. A softening wouldn’t hurt. She dropped a few drops of Evening in Paris on the light-bulb, then draped her floral print silk scarf over the lampshade. When the tea was sufficiently steeped, she sat down with the teacup her aunt Maude had given her—real china—and wondered where she might get another such cup in case she ever had company in her room.

Finally, when Cora did knock, October opened the door but didn’t get a word out before Cora said, If you like him, make him take you out.

October stepped out and closed her door. He seems nice, she said.

You don’t know him, Cora reminded her. They were going down the stairs. Cora hushed her voice a little. Men can be very nice when they’re getting what they want, especially if you’re the chick on the side.

October touched Cora’s shoulder Are you trying to tell me that he’s married?

No, October, I’m just saying that you don’t know him. Ed has worked with him at Tobin’s Construction off and on. Seems to me Ed said something that made me think Shorty’s got somebody already.

Oh, October said. You’re right, I don’t even know him. Why would I care if he’s got somebody? And she flounced on down the stairs ahead of Cora. So, they call him Shorty.

At the table that evening they had hardly passed the potatoes when Mrs. Pemberton got started again about how much electricity you girls were using, and went right from that into how they might think about getting their souls saved by avoiding these honky-tonks I hear tell about and doing more in the church. October had to listen to Mrs. Pemberton low-rate dancing and listening to lowlife music knowing that she had a record upstairs waiting to be played and that James-called-Shorty had left it there. She tuned in again to hear Albertine say to Mary Esther, Oh, hush, Mary Esther, you don’t even know what a honky-tonk is.

Since forever, October’s Aunt Frances had worked out in the world as a licensed practical nurse, but church was her passion, too, just as it was Mrs. Pemberton’s. And Aunt Maude was no different. She had worked at the Meade Paper Mill, but all she knew was church.

October believed in God, liked gospel music—but, listening to Mrs. Pemberton, she considered that that give-all kind of dedication to religion must have something to do with age. In the name of advising, threatening, and comforting her and Vergie, her aunts had always spouted religion. Even when she or Vergie was inconsolable, their aunts had offered the only solace they could: they would cook enough food to feed a city, set her and Vergie down to it, and feed them sowing and reaping, and Unto every thing there is a season—holy words about all things coming to pass, nothing coming to stay.

Though she had never come right out and challenged her aunts, October had understood since she was five that some things do come to stay. Their mother’s unspeakable death, for instance, had come to stay.

Wednesday, two nights later, at around eight, my goodness surely not, October heard a soft rapping on her door. He had never telephoned, and definitely had no business upstairs—handyman or not—at that hour. She was in her robe with her midweek hair shouting.

In one move it was robe into closet, skirt zipped with no slip, scratchy sweater but it matches, bare legs are all right in house shoes but nylons are

Reviews for October Suite

[valerieandbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

October Suite focuses on October Brown, who starts her young adulthood as a teacher during the 1950s. As she is African-American, this is the perspective from what this novel gives. Additionally, this novel focuses on her family and friends around her and how October navigates her personal challenges. It's a quiet book -- I can't think of a better way to describe it than that. I liked it.