Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns by J. California Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

husband and she is my helpmate, and this is our work, together. Our business.” So he let her go to the college two times a week.
    She studied professional cleaning and fabrics classes about six months. During that time she and Robert met at school; they talked and they liked each other. Robert, on closer look, hearing her voice, seeing the light in her eyes, feeling her touch, was falling in love with Lily. She never seemed to see his color. The beautiful color God gave some people, he thought was unattractive.
    Why, she could even talk about his studies in engineering. Many times he thought to himself, “She understands!” Of course, they talked about other things. It was her first experience with a stranger, a man, in which she found enjoyment. And, while he had admired the usual pretty girl, he had never really gotten to know one. He thought Lily Bea was pretty and wondered why he had never noticed it before. “I don’t like that ugly fur coat she wears, though.”
    She learned even more than her class taught because she took out extra books on the subject, adding to her knowledge. On her way back to work from college, she sneaked in a few minutes at the dance studio to dance a few steps, twirling alone in the welcoming rooms among welcoming people. Then she would be off, to work and her husband.
    Robert and Lily Bea were very friendly at school, but back at the cleaners they were self-conscious about their friendship in front of Maddy Nettles. They felt dirty, because his thoughts were. But that seemed to push their feelings more together. Each began to feel the other’s presence stronger. Sex would seem to be rearing its head a bit. But sex did not get to tremble over them; it was not what either wanted. Then.
    Sex was the last thing Lily Bea wanted anything to do with, and Robert had not thought of Lily in that way before. But, now, their bodies were like a magnet. They began to avoid closeness in the little shop because, somehow, their closeness changed there. In the shop, when close, their breathing, so near each other, gave them the intensity of suffocating. Lily found it hard to breathe. If they happened to look at each other at these times, it was like a caress, a climax of a sort. It embarrassed them, even as they enjoyed the innocent goodness of the feelings.
    They grew to love each other, a little. But it was not a love they chose to do anything about, except to enjoy the closeness, the feelings and sharing of thoughts. These things were new to the both of them. Lily had other plans even though she didn’t know what they were. Robert wanted his life to be free, to lift himself up, and beyond his past.
    Maddy Nettles noticed; their feelings became so intense, he began to feel it. Not thinking of the help Robert was to him, Maddy took Lily out of school and fired Robert, immediately. “Boy, you get on way from here. You makin your way to breakin up my home. Naw, you get on way from round here. And don’t come back neither.” He took up his own chores again. His angry leg was angrier than ever, as angry as he himself was. At life. “You gimme this leg, God, now see what you done done! It ain’t fair!”
    Robert Earner left confused and bewildered with Maddy’s words. He understood, but he didn’t understand, “We have done nothing.” He left off “yet.” Because somewhere in his mind, he knew. Of their guilt they were innocent; yet, even in their innocence they knew their guilt. He returned his full mind to his education; he had been steadily saving, planning. With a scholarship and his savings he was on his way to an African-American college, his dream. He did love Lily Bea, but he nodded his head “good-bye” to her, and disappeared from her life.
    Not too long after the firing, Maddy became ill and could not work for a month or two. He had always washed all the dry-cleaning possible in the washing machine in the back of the shop. Then he would steam press them hisself. In time, as his health