Regina smoked a borrowed Kool. She was tired, hot, feeling all the weight the Mississippi late June sky gave. Peter was back in jail, so it was just her and the kids, and now as she smoked every bit of her cigarette, she watched Johnny, Tammy, Rosedale, and Lil Pete play in the red dirt. Maybe if she was inside, not smoking, the two Cadillacs and cargo van would have kept driving. But she was outside, watching the kids clump around in the Mississippi clay, holding mentholated smoke in her mouth as long as she could before exhaling it into the still air that hung over everything.

She watched the caravan kicking up dust as they drove towards the house, the shiny blackness of the vehicles like animals creating darkness where the barren lands and periwinkle-colored skies met, leaving a temporary absence in their wake. She could hear the engines, the tires kicking up dust and rocks, and their music. Blues. But somehow, more modern than the blues.

The front car, slicker than all the rest, stopped. The kids, curious, stopped their game and stood up, following the movement on their land. The other two vehicles—the little van and the other Caddy, slowed and stopped behind their leader. The driver and the man riding on the passenger side got out. Both of them were Black, darker than Regina, and wore nice chinos, but were stripped down to their undershirts. “Here, Ms. Nina?” the driver asked. Regina couldn’t see his face, but she was certain his expression was that of confusion.

A short, fat woman got out the back. She wore a shift that revealed every curve she had, a huge hat, and a smile that beamed from across the yard. She laughed loudly. “Those kids got the idea! Nothing cooler than the dirt.”

The other vehicles emptied themselves of their passengers. All Black folks, all dressed in clean clothes, all looking like fancy fish gasping for watered air. They gathered in a crowd by the first car, chattering. Some carried instrument cases. Regina tried counting them as they shoaled about, but lost the number at ten. Johnny, Tammy, Rosedale, and Lil Pete looked at the strangers and their strange cars, then ran to Regina, surrounded her legs as if she could protect them. Regina blew smoke and before she expelled it all, took another hit off her cigarette. She watched the gatherers, who all looked toward the car. The short woman laughed loudly again, then sang a long “Lord,” in a crystal clear note that bounced off the treeless skyline, back to them. “This is Mississippi, alright, Miss Nina, and may I say goddamn?” Each word a note. An improvised melody. Regina took one last hit from the Kool and held it, flicked the butt away from herself and her children, then reached her two large, cleaning woman hands out, ushered her children close, held them closer.

Gently, Regina backed her children and herself closer to the door of the trailer. She wasn’t afraid; she was just unsure.

One of the men gallantly ran to the back door of the first car and opened it. He stood aside and held a hand out, like a chauffeur, but Regina could tell that his behavior was part play, part serious. The crowd of people waited. Long, skinny legs with high heel shoes stepped out. Regina touched her own hair and could feel that the dust which blew softly everywhere had settled into her curls. Regina knew she was pretty, country-girl pretty, but she felt inadequate and out of place in her own domain.

The rest of the lady came out of the car. Tall. Skinny, too, but still hippy. She was made taller by the scarf she wore regally on her hair. Elegance through and through. Her neck was her most exciting feature, Regina could see that. She didn’t congregate with the others. Instead, she started making her way to the trailer and the others followed. Regina counted them all now. Fourteen in total, including the woman in front.

“Mississippi Goddamn,” the short woman said, her voice soft. She then sang it. Chills covered Regina’s skin, and she shivered in the hundred-degree weather.

The tall lady stopped right at the boot of the stoop. “How you doing?” she asked, her voice more melodic, more soothing, than the short woman.

“I’m fine,” Regina answered. She felt like a child in front of those people. “How are you?”

“Hot,” the woman said. “Hot, tired, and in need of a bath. Y’all got a bathtub in that trailer?”

Regina nodded. She recognized the woman. She was still unsure, but in a different way now.

“I can pay you for just the use of that tub. And a glass of cold water.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Regina said. “This is a home and baths come free. I’d be a heathen not to give y’all water. You’re Nina Simone?”

She smiled and nodded. “I’m at a disadvantage here Who are you?”

“Regina Washington. My kids.”

“Adorable children.” She stooped down so she was as low as Tammy, the five-year-old. “Y’all say your names?”

Being the oldest, Johnny announced himself, then in order, Rosedale, Tammy, and Lil Pete.

“Is there a big Pete?”

“There is but he ain’t home,” Regina said.

“He in jail,” Lil Pete said, still not understanding the concept of jail yet and how taboo it is. Regina looked away, down the road, as if looking for her husband. Then she rubbed Lil Pete’s head.

“Of course he is,” Miss Simone said. “They can’t keep a Black man free in Mississippi.”

“Amen,” her entourage said behind her.

“He should be home soon, they say, but you know how it is, Miss Simone.”

Regina stepped away from the door so that she could open it. “Can I invite you inside? Y’all ain’t all going to fit, but—”

“Not all of these motherfuckers are going to go inside your house, Mrs. Washington. Just me and the girls. And Andy, maybe. I’d prefer he not come inside, though. Just us girls.” The short woman and another one, not quite as tall as Nina Simone, but very shapely, stepped forward.

= =

Nina Simone hummed a melody as Regina drew the bath. The other two women were in the living room with the kids; Nina had ordered them to serve the musicians water and sweet tea, so it was just Regina and Nina in the little trailer bathroom.

“You like it hot? Even in this heat?”

“Hmm, yes. It’ll cool off. I got a kid, too. A little girl.”

“So I heard.”

“She’s being kept now, since we’re on this little tour. What part of the state are we in?”

“No part. Tutwiler. Nothing here but dirt and package stores.”

Nina laughed.

“I’ll give you your privacy,” Regina said.

“But I don’t want it, help me take this scarf off. This dress.”

Regina imagined that normally her guest would have a lady-in-waiting, or the equivalent, to help her with ablutions, so she didn’t mind staying and helping. She carefully undid Miss Nina’s scarf and marveled at the perfectly coifed afro underneath. She untied and unzipped the long sheath dress for her, and Nina stepped out of the sequined heels she wore. Regina saw that the shoes were now covered in the red dirt. Nina must have seen it, too, but she didn’t seem to mind. Regina appreciated that.

Nina sat on the edge of the tub and peeled off the silk stockings. She took down her satin panties. She didn’t wear a bra.

“I wish my body looked like that after having kids.”

Nina laughed. “Do you sing?”

“No, ma’am, except for in church.”

Nina reached down and let her long fingers grace the water waiting for her in the tub. “Damn near perfect,” she said. She stepped in. “You want to join me?”

“I’ll give you your privacy.”

“I said I don’t want it. Besides, going to need someone to wash my back.” She relaxed into the tub, letting her back sit against the porcelain. “To make sure I don’t die. You looking at my titties, Miss Regina?”

Regina blushed. “I nursed each and every one of my babies. I’m thinking I shouldn’t have now.”

Nina grabbed the face cloth that floated around in the water, seductively dragged the wet towel across her breasts. “Before Andy,” she said, “I loved women. Tell me about Peter. Big Peter.”

“In jail for no good reason. I don’t even understand the charges. They said he attempted rape and stole some beer.”

“A white woman?”

“Is there any other kind of woman the State would care about? It’s, well God forgive me for using the word, it’s bullshit.”

“You love him?”

“He’s the father of my children.”

“But do you love him?”

Regina sat on the tub’s edge. Feeling bold, she ran her fingers through the water as she saw Miss Nina do earlier. “What it’s like? You know, being loved by everyone? Playing on stage and singing for all those people?”

Nina scoffed. “Not everybody loves me. When I sang other people’s songs, when I sang standards, they did. When I cursed your state and started singing for us, their love soured.”

Regina took the towel from Nina. “I suppose I love Pete. He tries, you know. Tries real hard. You want me to get your back?”

“Back, front, it don’t matter.” Nina leaned forward. Groaned. Regina noticed a bruise. “Yeah, even us celebrated ones marry brutes. He was a cop before and, you know, I think he’s used to force instead of words. But he cares for me.”

“Peter doesn’t care for me like that. His caring don’t leave marks.”

The towel fell from Regina’s hand and back into the tub. It splashed with a sound that echoed against the little bathroom’s walls. Nina Simone’s perfume collated with the scent of the homemade lye soap, a recipe reaching back to slavery, passed down to her from her own mother, who was now buried just a few miles away. She didn’t know why, but Regina started crying.

“Hey, now, it’s not as bad as all that. We get in fights. What loving couple don’t?”

“It’s not that,” Regina said. “I’m not sure what it is.”

“You’re a good mother. I mean, with what you have, those kids look taken care of. Well-fed and well-loved.”

“Love. That’s the word today.”

“I’m going to give you some money—”

“I’m not asking for it. Look, what you have is wonderful, I am certain. I see that. A cortège following you and at your every beck and call, I see that. But that’s not what it is. I don’t want to look like I need money and I was taught to never want. I want to teach my kids the same.”

“Well, I’m going to leave it for the kids. Get them something besides dirt to play with.”

At that moment, Regina hated her guest. Her kids had toys. They had things to play with. They chose to play together outside, as she smoked. She wanted another cigarette. She wanted to tell Miss Simone that even though they lacked a lot—including a present father—they had each other. Their kids weren’t being “kept” by someone. She wanted Nina out.

And maybe she didn’t have to say anything. Maybe her body said it all, because Nina Simone spoke up. “I really don’t mean to offend, Mrs. Washington, and I know like anybody how hard it is to accept a gift, believe me, but if you don’t need it now and if you don’t need it ever, that’s fine. Just let it sit, like you’re letting me sit here. Lord knows that if someone would have given me a break earlier—” she stopped talking.

“Then what?”

“Then what?” Nina repeated. “I don’t know. What does it matter? We can’t say what could have been, ma’am, we can only speculate.” She sunk deeper into the tub until only her head was above the water.

“Well, answer me this? Why is your child being kept?”

“I was afraid of what we’d find here, in Mississippi, after that record was released. I didn’t want her to experience that.”

Regina nodded. Feeling bold again, and curious, she reached towards Nina and let her knuckles grace the woman’s long neck. She turned her fingers over and traced her collarbone, took her pointer finger and let it lead her to Nina’s small, protruding breast, and she touched it, caressed it as she liked to be touched. She wanted to argue that her kids were here in Mississippi, and if the state was good enough for them, then what?

Nina Simone reached up and held Regina’s hand that caressed her. “I want you to know I love all of us Black women. All of us.”

= =

Nina Simone and her entourage were gone, satiated with water and sweet tea, Nina with a bath, and they were back on the road. The kids were cleaned and in bed and the trailer was homey again, quiet. Regina sang a song to her kids, one whose words she didn’t understand. A lost language that, like the soap, was handed down and handed down, syllables older than anything she could imagine. But they were sounds that soothed her and her kids. Safe noises. When they were all four asleep, she left them and went into her own room. She could still smell the perfume of the three women who were in her house earlier, still feel the tingling Nina Simone made her experience in the bathroom. She left money and, of course, Regina needed it. The cleaning she did for others and for the church was not enough to sustain herself and the kids, not with Peter in jail. But for now, the cash was stashed in a pickle jar on top of the kitchen cabinet.

Regina went to her own room, the room she shared with Peter, who did try his best. She closed her eyes and tried putting herself to sleep with her daydreams. She thought about telling her church friends and Peter about Nina Simone’s visit, but she savored the idea of keeping the visit all to herself and her kids and the red dust beneath them. And like clockwork, Rosedale came into her room and crawled into her bed. Regina let her daughter cuddle against her; they were like two crawfish curled together. Rosedale put her thumb into her mouth and closed her eyes, the eyelashes so long they brushed her cheeks.

DeMisty D. Bellinger is the author of the short story collection All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere, the winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction. She teaches in the center of Massachusetts, where she raises her twin teens, along with her husband. Learn more at demistybellinger.com .

Mississippi June, by DeMisty D. Bellinger

When Aerosmith and Run DMC decide to co-parent, by Melissa Llanes Brownlee

Trouble Child, by Rachel Mans McKenny