Indigo looked at Miranda lying on the stool & then back at Uncle John whose eyes were all over her face, the fiddle, the bow. & in a moment like a fever, Indigo carried that bow cross those fiddle strings till Miranda knew how much her friend loved her, till the slaves who were ourselves made a chorus round the fire, till Indigo was satisfied she wasn’t silenced. She had many tongues, many spirits who loved her, real & unreal.

The South in her.

It was already so late Mr. Lucas had started to lock up his shop. Only the lights in the very back were still on. Indigo held onto her violin with its musty case religiously, & she beat on the doors of the pharmacy like somebody possessed. “Please open up, Mr. Lucas. It’s a emergency,” she shouted. Mr. Lucas, portly & honey brown, peered out the door thru the lettering: Lucas’ Pharmacy, Oldest Negro Drugstore in Charleston, S.C. Between the “S” & the “C” there was Indigo’s face, churning & shouting. Mr. Lucas opened up remarking, “An emergency is somebody dyin’ or a woman who needs some Kotex.” Indigo was stunned. “Hi, Mr. Lucas, how’d you know that?”

“Oh, I been in this business a long time, Indigo. Tell your mother she almost missed me this time.”

“Oh, it’s not for Mama, it’s for me.” All of a sudden Indigo blushed & shrank. She’d gone & done what her mother had asked her please not to do. Mr. Lucas took a step toward Indigo, like he was looking for the woman in her. He’d seen younger girls than Indigo who were busy having babies. He’d even seen girls more comely in a grown-woman manner than she who didn’t bleed at all. But here was this girl with this child body & woman in her all at once. It was difficult for Mr. Lucas to just go & get the Kotex. He wanted to keep looking at this girl, this woman. He wanted to know what she felt like.

Indigo heard somebody talking to her. She saw Mr. Lucas coming toward her & somebody talking to her. Telling her to get the Kotex & get home quick. Get the Kotex & get home quick. Indigo ran to the back of the store, grabbed the blue box, stuffed it under her arm with Miranda & whipped thru the aisles with Mr. Lucas behind her, lumbering, quiet. The fiddle was knocking all kinds of personal hygiene products off shelves: toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream. Indigo almost dropped it, but she held tighter, moved faster, heard somebody telling her to get home quick. She got to the doors, started to look back & didn’t. She just opened the door as best she could without letting go of anything & ran out.