In the Red

She had a love/hate relationship with Black and White. Her contrast against their extremes was a blessing and a curse. But this was worse. This was Grey, neither one nor the other and not itself at all.

Her name was Corinne, and she had been Red all her life. She was Cayenne, Crimson, and Scotch Bonnet. She was Fire Engine and Brimstone, but she was never that compromise between Black and White because compromise is crocheted blankets, recliners, canned beans, and gelatin desserts. Compromise is comfortable and palatable, and a mirror that lies.

Corinne Stevens, daughter of Lemoine Tate and Celeste Stevens, was born smiling. When the doctor slapped her, she looked him straight in the eye and giggled, flashing teeth that should not have been. When she was two, she kissed her mother and said “I’ll see you later, alligator” right before her father let loose a moan too guttural to describe. When she was three, she smiled and told her daddy to tell her mama “hello.”

Corinne moved into Tata Stevens’ house after that. Tata was Corinne’s great-aunt, Deep Red and Plum. Three shades of Eggplant bathed Tata’s house and beckoned the ones who dared to cross its Haint Blue porch. The front yard was a carpet of Marigolds, Violets, and switch trees that Tata never used.

Tata painted Aztec mosaics in the bedrooms and Jacksonian splatters in the kitchens. There were two kitchens in Tata’s house - one for mixing and one for cooking. Porcelain demitasse shared shelves with yard-sale mugs in the kitchens, and lace doilies rested on leather arms in the bedrooms. All around the house, Rainbow betas with trust issues lived alone in tanks, and pothos crept all around.

Corinne loved that house. It hugged her when she entered and rocked her when she cried. It kept her secrets - great and small - and whispered a few when they were alone. The house smelled like bread pudding and bourbon with hints of warm rain and cinnamon. Hummingbirds and crows ate lunch with Corinne, and wind chimes hypnotized them all when they napped on the wrap-around porch. Between Tata and her pets, Corinne pretended not to notice when her friends stopped visiting.

By the time she was 10, the mamas and daddies in Point Blue forbade their children from having anything to do with her. Corinne heard what they said when she and Marraine danced in the rain for two hours as Parrain transitioned to perfection and realized that sometimes children are smarter than mamas and daddies. She saw parents grab their children’s hands and cross streets when she went to town with Tata, and she smelled their judgment.

By the time Corrine was 12, Tata Stevens stepped in and homeschooled her niece. She taught Corinne to read, to write, and to be. Tata taught Corinne the perils and promise of entrepreneurship and how to ignore the slithering moccasins that swam with the sweet perch that the elder woman sold in the café no one knew she owned. They would not come if they knew.

“If you don’t bother most snakes, they won’t bother you,” Tata said. So they fished those waters and grew stronger.

“Most snakes, Tata?” Corinne asked.

“Yes, most. That doesn’t apply to the snakes who walk upright and tell their children not to play with you. Those snakes will bother you when you least expect it,” Tata declared in the voice that rattled those who did not know her. Those who truly knew Tata Stevens – and they were few - said her bark was worse than her bite, but worse was a relative term at best regarding Tata.

On the seventh day of school in the last year Corinne attended formal classes, Courtney Toussaint stood on the receiving end of Tata’s bark. Courtney was the newest counselor at All Saints Middle School. Witnesses might say it’s a bit hyperbolic to say the lights went out at All Saints that day, but they flickered for sure.

Corinne’s English teacher shared some of Corinne’s poems with the school’s administrative team on that fateful day – not because the poems were written in perfect iambic pentameter. No, the skittish teacher who wrung her hands and swayed from side to side each time she visited the principal’s office shared those poems because Corinne eulogized half of the staff in those poesies, and it evidently wasn’t the first time.

So a well-intentioned Courtney called Tata to tell her that Corinne was being referred to psyche services.

“Her writing concerns us. We think she’s developing some harmful ideations that require professional analysis,” Courtney explained and waited.

When nothing came from Tata’s end, Courtney wondered whether Tata was still on the line.

“Hello, are you there?”

Still nothing other than what sounded like a door slamming.

It took less than 10 minutes for Tata to make the 18-minute trip to All Saints. When she arrived, the school secretary didn’t say a word. Mary Agnes Soileau had been manning the front desk for 16 years, and she was all too familiar with the Stevens.

MA – that’s what the kids called Mary – loved Tata’s visits. For a second, she contemplated running to the staff lounge to throw a bag of popcorn into the microwave, but she did not want to chance missing a minute of the show that was about to happen in little Miss Courtney’s office.

As soon as the door to the counselor’s office closed, MA pressed the button on her intercom and settled in.

“Hello, Tata!”

First strike.

“Little girl, I am too old for someone your age to address me by anything other than my surname! I have not given you my permission to do anything less . . .”

“Please pardon me . . .”

Strike two.

Tata’s “I’m not finished” stopped Courtney’s apology midstream.

“I was simply trying to apologize,” Courtney whined.

When the room became too quiet for her liking, Mary Agnes peeked through the skinny window on the paper-thin door to Courtney’s office.

Tata and Courtney stood facing each other, but neither of them spoke for a delicious eternity.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Courtney asked, her voice too shaky and too shrill to be respected.

“Looking at you like what, child?”

“Like that!” Courtney squeaked, wringing her hands like the teacher she’d met earlier in the day.

“There’s nothing odd about how I am looking at you, young lady. What’s odd is a bunch of adults calling a 12-year-old with The Gift crazy simply because they don't understand her. The whole lot of you are so typical."

When Courtney attempted to interrupt Tata for the fourth time, the elder Stevens had enough. She knew if she and Corinne didn’t leave soon, little Courtney would be calling more than psyche services for assistance.

The lesson Corinne learned on her last day at All Saints changed everything.

She went into town less and less. When Tata invited her, Corinne made up excuses and pretended Tata didn’t know the truth. Her list of reasons for missing the trips was pretty innovative, though.

“The hummingbirds are beefing with the crows,” she’d say. “I’d better stick around.” When it looked like that didn’t work, she offered things like “I’m in sensory overload right now” or “I really need to recharge.”

When Corinne ran out of excuses, she tried being Grey and went into town with her Aunt. Black liked her, and White forgave her when she was Grey. When The Gift visited, Corinne ignored her and pretended to be common. That worked for a while too.

Until the day it didn’t.

Tata, Corinne, and Marraine Cecile were in L’Asile, surrounded by rows of okra, tomatoes, and beans. In the center was Fig and two Pomegranates. On the left, giant pecans stood guard as hens lay eggs in the coop on the right.

Tata allowed only a select few into this sanctum. Shared DNA wasn’t enough. To enter, you had to be famille de couer – family of the heart. Very few people passed that test, but when they did, they saw a version of Tata people like Courtney and MA never saw.

Cecile and Tata were cousins, and they loved being in their Edenic refuge. The Stevens women were free in L’Asile - so free they often let their guards down there and muted The Gift, especially when Cecile, the family traiteur, was around.

Had they been on guard, the cousins would have known Corinne lay still in a bed of thorns on the floor of Tata’s nursery, blanketed by Butter, Cream, and Peach while Grey took a bow. When the cousins finally found Corinne, they could not believe their eyes.

It was happening again. The first time these faded shapeshifters visited, Corrine was one. When she was two, Grey showed up again and leeched onto Corinne until Cecile exorcised the achromatic nemesis.

“Corinne Adele Stevens! Get up!” Tata boomed as the thorns tried to prick Corinne’s consciousness. When they failed, Grey paused. When Corinne continued to sleep, he resumed his frenzied ballet.

Not one to wait and see, Cecile took over and summoned The Gift. L’Asile held its breath as the traiteur’s hands spanned Corinne’s body. The Figs took a knee as hummingbirds and crows held hands. Wind chimes hushed and listened as Cecile spoke to Corinne.

“You misunderstand their ardor, cher,” she whispered. “Envy dances with the same passion as love, but you must learn the difference. Envy comes to take, while love comes to give.” Then she lapsed into a language neither Tata nor the wind chimes could understand.

When Cecile was done, she whispered, “Amen,” and commanded Corinne to open her eyes.

“Where you been, cher?” Tata asked when Corinne obeyed.

“I was in between here and there,” Corinne said and spoke of The Tepid Place where Grey lived. “The people there are hexed. When I arrived, they gave me their brand - 80808080 - and told me my gifts were not allowed. Then they said I must disavow our lifestyle if I wanted to remain.”

“Why did you go with them, Corinne?” Tata asked. She knew the answer, but she needed Corinne to testify.

Abdication. Self-Sacrifice. Belonging.

“I thought I was over this feeling, Tata. I wasn’t, so I pretended to be like them, and they welcomed me.”

Corinne did not look at Tata as she spoke because she knew she would see disappointment in her aunt’s face. When she chanced a glance, Tata’s brilliance was blinding – a brilliance that looked a lot like Cecile.

“Belonging comes with strings, my dear.”

“Yes, Tata.”

“You must promise to never do that again, Corinne.”

“I won’t,” Corinne said, partially shielding her eyes from the scarlet light surrounding her aunt. “I understand who Grey is now.”

“Very good, pistache!”

Then, “Tata?”

“Yes, cher?”

“Please give Mama a hug for me, and tell Papa I said hello.”

___________

cher – sweetheart

L’Asile – retreat, sanctuary, insane asylum

pistache – peanut

traiteur – faith healer