Strivers Row by Kevin Baker Read Free Book Online

out from the front parlor.
    â€œSay, what’s that you got on there?” he asked Adam, trying to change the conversation again. “I’ve never heard anything quite like it.”
    The music really was extraordinary—what sounded like very complicated jazz riffs, played on classical themes.
    â€œThat’s Hazel Scott, she’s terrific,” Adam said casually, bouncing up off his chair and going inside. “Here, let me turn it up for you!”
    â€œOh, now don’t be doing that, sugar, I believe Preston went to sleep already!” Isabel called after him, but it was too late—the music flaring up, drawing the smoky blare of a Village nightclub suddenly out onto the porch with them. Making Jonah think of what Sophia was doing these days. His lost sister —
    â€œShe’s down at Café Society,” Adam told them as he sat back down. “You and Amanda ever been? It’s about the only place outside of Harlem where people of all colors can sit down together and enjoy a little music! We’ll have to take you some night, after we get back to the City.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know,” Jonah said too quickly. Afraid that he would discover Sophie there, and what that would mean.
    â€œI hear the place is a front for the Communists—”
    â€œSo what if it is?” Adam scoffed, snapping his fingers. “Political party days are coming to a close. It’s not going to matter anymore whether you’re Democrat, Republican, Communist—just so long as you’re marching black.”
    â€œWell, perhaps, perhaps,” Jonah mumbled, wanting to drop the whole subject as quickly as he had brought it up.
    He was saved by the appearance of Preston in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. Jonah had been surprised to see how big he’d gotten—nearly a teenager now, though still a boy, his thick mop of hair turned almost blond by the summer sun. He was wearing a pair of Adam’s old fishing trunks, one of his T-shirts hanging baggily down over his waist, and when he stretched his arms and yawned all the adults on the porch smiled. Jonah knew without looking that Amanda’s eyes were on him again. Wondering the same old question, when they were going to have theirs—
    And what would be the purpose of that? To bring them into this world?
    â€œSomethin’ woke me up,” Preston mumbled.
    â€œMmm, that would be your Daddy,” Isabel said, pretending to cast a stern look at Adam. “Him and Hazel Scott.”
    â€œI had bad dreams,” Preston said, a small frown crossing his smooth, innocent face.
    â€œAw, that’s too bad,” Adam said gently, getting up and taking him by the hand. “C’mon, let’s get you back to bed so you can have some good ones and wipe ’em out.”
    They all followed Adam and the boy back into the cottage, the mosquitoes and the blackflies beginning to bite now. Isabel turned off the record, the rest of them resettling themselves around the living room while Adam took Preston up to bed.
    His acceptance of the boy had been the crowning grace of their marriage, Jonah knew. There had been much speculation about what would happen if he and Isabel had their own child—another heir to the throne!—but they never had, and Adam had formally adopted Preston as his own son.
    It was more than just an adoption, though—Adam truly seemed to love the boy. Here on the island he was always teaching him things. In the afternoons he would take him out on the sailboat, schooling him in how to tack and to jibe, and to clam and crab and fish. They would tromp back along South Circuit Avenue together, grinning like a couple of maniacs in their shorts and sandals, Adam insisting on showing off their catch to everyone they passed.
    Back at the Abyssinian he let Preston run the camera that captured Adam’s every sermon, and the sound system that projected his voice out on the street, to