“I—I took them out. I couldn’t bear to look at them, at her. It was just too painful, so I took them out and put them in here.” Pearl went to the closet and retrieved a large white jewelry box from the top shelf. The age-old paint was yellowed and chipped at the corners, revealing the pale pine wood. A smiling ballerina stood gracefully on its top, her painted lips pursed in perfection. “This use to be mine when I was a little girl and I gave it to Jude on her eighth birthday. She loved it so, would lift the top and let the music play for hours. It don’t play music no more, it stopped the day . . .” Pearl trailed off.
“It’s okay, Miss Pearl.” Sugar gently took the box from Pearl and went back over to the bed.
“I only look at them when I feel I need to have her near me. When I miss her the most.”
Sugar lifted the lid and saw herself staring back at her. She jerked as if struck. Her hands were shaking as she lifted the first of many pictures from the box. Jude rolling in the grass, Jude swimming in the lake, Jude sleeping, Jude laughing. Sugar’s head was swimming. If someone had brought these pictures to her and said, “Here you are in the life you can’t recall,” she would have believed every word of it and ignored the slight differences that remained between Jude and herself. Jude’s smaller nose and thinner lips, her rounder eyes and fuller brow. But the smile was the same; sure and solid. Sugar knew that smile, it was her own.
“You see,” Pearl said, standing over her. Sugar shook her head yes. She did see and it scared her to death. “They say everyone got a twin, you hers, I guess,” Pearl said and sat down beside her. “God done sent you here to soothe my hurting heart. I see that now. He could have sent you anyplace else, but he chose Bigelow. He sent you here to put a smile back on my face and laughter back in my mouth. He knew I had turned my back on him after Jude, I told him I would continue to serve him, but I couldn’t trust him no more. That was, until you showed up.” Pearl placed her hand over Sugar’s. “I love you for helping me trust again.”
Pearl’s words melted over Sugar, coating her in warmth and sweet affection, but simple acceptance was hard for Sugar after so many years of rough callused hands handling her body.
“You think you love me because I remind you of Jude,” Sugar said quietly.
“That may have been so in the beginning, but now I love you for you, not who you remind me of.”
Chapter Fifteen
JOE stepped into his home just as the long hand on his watch skipped past the two, dawdled a while and then anded squarely on the short hand, which comfortably kissed the three. Welcomed by an empty home, Joe was immediately aware of the untidiness of his house. Thick dust covered the coffee table and the plastic lampshades. There were dishes in the sink, an unwashed bowl, batter still clinging to its inside walls. Clothes were strewn across the unmade bed and globs of blue Pepsodent littered the bathroom basin.
He unpacked, and carefully placed his clothes in the closet. All the while he wondered where his wife could be.
He moved to the lower parts of the house, discovering the warm smell of lemon pound cake. Joe scratched at his chin and walked to the living room. He thought about calling Shirley to see if Pearl was there, but as his hand made contact with the phone, large yellow headlights traveled quickly across the room, blinding him for a moment and then disappearing. An engine hummed contentedly outside his door and he heard loud, loose laughter that for some reason reminded him of the French brothels he visited during the war.
He opened the door slowly, not realizing he had moved to do so, and what he saw made him catch his breath. A woman he thought to be his wife, but was quite sure she wasn’t, was ascending the porch stairs; her smile, painted burgundy, was fading quickly until it was just a line. “Joe?” She must know me, he thought, she’s called me by name. The first drops of rain began to fall, within moments it was driving, drenching the stranger before him. Pearl was thankful for the rain, for it hid the tears of sudden shame that sprung as if on cue when Joe opened the door.
Blue and black ran down her face and washed over the painted burgundy lips. “Joe?” Why wasn’t he saying anything? He was tormenting her with silence. She was misreading his eyes, and for the first time Pearl felt fearful of her husband.
Sugar was standing in the background, her off-white dress soaked through revealing her naked breasts and bright red French cut underwear. Darkness had swallowed up Bigelow, thunder clapped loudly behind its curtain, but Sugar remained. Isaac was gone before the first drop fell, barreling his beat-up pickup down the road, one hand hanging out the window waving good-bye. Sugar looked around to see if there was something she could use to protect Pearl, should Joe strike her. Nothing. She clenched her fists and summoned up every bit of strength she had. She would take him with her bare hands if she had to. She waited.
“Joe, I got’s a lot to tell you. Uhm, something’s done happened since you been gone.” Pearl was yelling over the driving rain and booming thunder. Bolts of lightning sliced through the damp darkness, lighting up her frightened face, reflecting the terror that was eating its way out.
“Bit?” Joe leaned forward and Pearl flinched. “Jesus Christ, that you, Bit?” His voice was pure amazement. “Bit, w-what, where you been? Come inside before you catch cold, woman!” Joe stepped forward and grabbed Pearl’s hand, pulling her to him in a quick, wet embrace.
Sugar’s racing heart began to slow. Her fists relaxed and then laughter, nervous at first, bubbled out until it poured like the rain that soaked her.
Pearl sat in the warmth of the kitchen, her grandmother’s quilt wrapped around her damp body, her feet soaking in a warm tub of water. Blue and yellow flames danced below the kettle encouraging the long, high scream that pierced the quiet calm of the house.
Joe was moving about; mixing eggs for scrambling, bending over and looking in the refrigerator to check for slab bacon; shaking his head in dismay when he found none. Searching cupboards and finding a half-empty box of grits and flour for biscuits. “We got buttermilk?” he questioned and looked over his shoulder.
“Some left,” Pearl responded. She had insisted that he sit while she made breakfast, but Joe would not have it. He’d pause every once in a while and fold his arms, shaking his head, marveling at the beauty that reclaimed Pearl’s face. “You sure do look different, Bit.”
Slowly, as the grits cooked and her tea cooled, she unfolded for him the two weeks spent with Sugar. The helpless connection she felt toward her, the affection that grew beneath it. Her face moved in angry waves as she told of her so-called friends’ disdain for Sugar and their relationship; the threats and warnings that would certainly befall her should she continue on the path she’d chosen to take.
Joe listened intently as he scooped the grits onto two plates and stirred the eggs. She used her words carefully, side-stepping exactly what Sugar was and always had been. But Joe knew, he’d heard talk from the men in town. She described in detail Sugar’s time in Short Junction, growing up at the Lacey home. Joe’s mind cringed at her words and he stood quickly, attempting to avoid the question he knew would come.
“You know about that place, the Lacey place over in Short Junction?”
“Yep, heard about it when I was there.” Joe knew he’d answered too quickly. They both heard the false composure in his tone and fell silent. Over the years he’d tried to expel the memory of the beautiful brown woman with hair that touched her shoulders and a smile that seemed to warm the air. Her name had passed his lips once since he married. And that was while he slept beside Pearl and dreamed of the time he spent with the woman beneath the sycamore trees.
Bertie Mae.
Even now as he sat remembering what he’d tried so hard to forget, he could taste the sweet dew that was her lips.
He’d met her while laying railroad tracks just on the outskirts of Short Junction only days after he’d decided to marry Pearl. His days in Short Junction were long hard ones. Lifting steel and laying steel was not an easy task for any man, but the black man seemed
to complain less and accomplish more. Those long hard days laboring beneath a relentless sun were made bearable knowing that the sun would set, the heat recede and evening would find him at the Lacey home.
His path crossed daily with the beautiful Bertie Mae, since she’d taken to sitting up on a grassy incline beneath a sycamore tree. She said that was her place of solitude. Later it would become their place of passion.
Joe was not a man who took advantage of women. It wasn’t in his character to do so, but Bertie Mae did something to him that tested his morals and caused his stomach to quiver. When she touched his cheek, her hand hot with desire, he knew that he would not, could not deny her.
Evening fell and she slowly undid her blouse. He had all intentions of saying no. He saw the first button slip and disappear from its opening and then the second. He’d found his voice by the third. “No, Bertie, please don’t.” He reached his hand up quickly to still her movements and found his palm pressed against the swell of her breast. She shuddered and covered his hand with her own, pushing it down hard.
Joe was still. He felt her nipples harden and strain against the thin worn fabric of her dress. He reached up and undid the remaining two buttons of the blouse. The material fell away to reveal two full, round, brown breasts. Bertie’s breathing quickened and her chest seemed to beckon him.
He leaned forward and kissed each jutting nipple gently. Flicking them with his tongue, causing Bertie to moan aloud, grabbing his head, anchoring his mouth on her hot breasts. Joe sucked like a hungry newborn, and pushed Bertie down to the ground.
He ran his tongue lightly up and down her neck. He came to her chin and nibbled at it. He moved to one ear and then the other, exploring it with his tongue and teeth. He kissed each eyelid and her nose. Joe paused when he came to her mouth. It was open, wet and ready. “You are so beautiful,” he said as his mouth came down on her own burning lips. Their tongues danced together for what seemed like forever.
Quickly and awkwardly, Joe removed his boots, overalls and thin white T-shirt. He stood before her, nude, his body as strong and dark as the trunks of the century-old trees that surrounded them. Bertie ogled at his penis. It stood long and erect, throbbing before her like his second heart. He removed her skirt and slip. She wore no panties, as she had only two pair and both were drying on the line in her yard.
Her stomach was flat, smooth and as unblemished as a river stone. He bent and kissed her navel, inhaling the sweet musky scent of her. Bertie gasped.
His tongue made circles on her thigh and then found itself between her legs, relentlessly toying with her womanhood. Bertie moaned and called his name over and over again. The grass beneath her was slick with her liquid. He pulled himself up and straddled her, placing her legs over his shoulders. As he entered her he kissed her, softly at first, and then with more urgency. Bertie winced in pain, pulled him closer, deeper until the pain was replaced with pleasure.
He slid in and out of her and breathed her name heavily in her ear and neck until they both cried out to the heavens.
They lay there beneath the sycamore tree, its branches whispering above them in the receding twilight.
They parted, no promises between them, not knowing their union had spawned a new life.
Pearl watched her husband remember some long ago indiscretion and as she was about to question him about the look in his eyes she heard her mother’s voice in the back of her mind: “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” Pearl obeyed those words and went on with her story.
“. . . and Joe, she sing like you wouldn’t believe! Her voice just lifts you up and takes you where it wants to. It’s powerful, you know?” Pearl’s eyes danced when she spoke of Sugar’s singing. Joe smiled and touched a small damp curl that clung to the side of Pearl’s cheek.
“That’s how she make you feel?” he asked, realizing now how much Sugar had played in his wife’s transformation.
“Me and a whole lot of other people. Joe, I been to a juke joint. Twice.” Pearl’s eyes were lowered, avoiding the disapproving look she was sure Joe was casting on her.
“Is that right,” he said between bites of food. Pearl heard the surprise in his voice and replayed his words in her mind to locate the anger that she expected to be there.
“You heard me?” she said and raised her eyes.
“You been to a juke joint. Yes, Bit, I heard you,” Joe replied, stuffing another biscuit in his mouth.
“Well, ain’t you got nothing to say about that?” She was looking full in his face now.
“Uhm, no I don’t. You went ’cause that’s what you wanted to do, right?”
“You think it’s all right for a Christian woman to be keeping time in a juke joint?”
“Well, I never thought about it before, but I do know there are worse places than a juke joint a Christian woman could be spending her time at.”
“Like where?”
“Like Shirley Brown’s!”
They laughed together over Joe’s little joke and finished the remainder of their meal by discussing his trip to Florida. In between Joe’s words and her questions, Pearl thanked God that she had picked correctly, and had been picked correctly. There weren’t many men who could come home to an unkept house to find his woman, mother of his children, climbing out of another man’s car (morning or night) and not knock her clear out of her skin first and ask questions later. Not many men would cook breakfast for that same woman and listen with interest about the time she spent with a whore.
The rain fell all day long that day. The sky was a gray ceiling. Bigelow children moved restlessly about the rooms of their homes, stared despondently through rain-streaked windows or bounced a ball impatiently against a wall.
Young lovers pulled each other closer, delighting in the patter of the raindrops and the colorless day that looked in at them. Old lovers would once again feel the fires of passion and desire take root and remain tangled in each other’s arms until night fell.
The rain had that effect on people. And so did Sugar’s presence.
They were both tired. Joe had hardly slept during the long train ride home. Pearl had been up since six that morning. They walked upstairs, arms linked, whispering instead of talking in normal tones. They each took turns washing up over the basin. Pearl washed her face and brushed her teeth twice. The Memphis Roll’s homemade beer and the early morning breakfast had left a steely taste on her tongue.
Looking up from the basin, Pearl caught sight of herself in the mirror and laughed aloud, a light silly chuckle reserved for soft young mouths of school girls just discovering the magic and mystery of a boy’s touch. She cast a guileful smile at the cotton gown that hung expectantly on the back of the bathroom door and her eyes moved back to the woman smiling in the mirror.
After a moment, she flicked the light switch off and walked stark naked from the bathroom to her bedroom.
In the gloomy gray morning light of the bedroom, Joe lay on his side. His mind was slowly being pulled into the darkness of slumber and he barely heard Pearl enter the room. He would marvel later at the absence of the swishing sound that usually accompanied Pearl’s entrance and the giggle that replaced it. He would enjoy recalling how Pearl climbed in beside him and pressed herself hard against his back, her legs thrown across his own, her breath, heavy with lust, against his neck. He would lick his lips in retrospect on the exact moment her lips brushed against the nape of his shoulder while her hand found the slant opening in his boxer shorts. He would not know that at the exact moment he realized his wife was naked against him and demanding in hushed, heavy tones that he fuck her (those were her exact words) while she expertly guided his organ up and down between the soft palm and fingers of her hand, the memory of that moment would, for the rest of his life, dance across his mind causing a small smile to cross his face.
Chapter Sixteen
THE first November morning was a warm sheath of fog that wrapped itself comfortably around Bigelow. People moved about cautiously, barely able to see th
eir hands in front of their faces, much less an approaching car or person. The willow branches hung eerily over the main roads and brushed invisible against brown cheeks, causing women and some men to shriek at its touch. The sun was a dim lightbulb in the sky and the soil a deep wet brown that oozed beneath feet.
Summer had battled autumn and won and now it threatened to drag into war the approaching winter. Only the calendars that hung on kitchen walls and the daily newspaper confirmed that winter was quickly approaching. Thanksgiving would soon be upon them and frost had not yet replaced the morning dew that settled on the thin blade grass.
Talk about Sugar had not completely ceased, but had melted into a low hum. People had less of a reason to stop and point at Sugar. In fact, she had blended into the woven cloth that was Bigelow, like a small imperfection or crooked stitch. Brightly colored dresses, pedal pushers and cropped tops were slowly replaced with cool calm blues, whites and greens that hugged Sugar’s figure more like an old friend than a lustful one-night stand.
She replaced the blonde and red wigs with subtle auburns and ravens that complimented her face and brought attention to her eyes.
Joe and Pearl accompanied Sugar to the Memphis Roll practically every Saturday night now. The bartender, waitresses and quite a few of the customers called Joe and Pearl by name, and they even had their own table, center front. The more time Sugar spent with the Taylors, the less time she spent with Lappy Clayton. He’d cornered Sugar on one occasion, grabbing her roughly by the arm as she stepped down off the stage. “Where you been?” His breath was sour and his eyes bloodshot. Sugar snatched her arm away from him. “I been around,” she said in disgust and started to walk away from him again. He stepped in front of her. “Yeah, you been around, but you ain’t been with me.” Sugar threw a quick look over his shoulder and saw Pearl’s worried eyes looking back at her. Pearl’s hand was resting on Joe’s shoulder, pushing him gently back down into his seat.
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