“Why you gots to be so proper? Talk dirty to me. Let me know how you feel.”
“Willie, after we get home, I promise.” I watched Herman dancing slow, cheek to cheek, with the petite country girl.
“Do you know that nigger?
“Who are you talking about, Willie?”
He nudged his head toward Herman. “The one over there who’s been staring at you all night.”
“No, I don’t know anybody, Willie.”
“Why the hell is he lookin’ over here then?”
I tried to laugh it off. “Come on, baby, I’ve been getting a lot of attention all my life.”
“You’s my wife.”
That threatening note in his voice awoke bad old memories. “Calm down; our night is just beginning,” I whispered in his ear.
Willie and I danced cheek to cheek one more time before we decided to leave.
Roy saw us and ran to open the door.
“Good night, Miz Pearl,” Roy said, holding the door.
“Look like I got back just in time,” Willie mumbled in my ear.
We lived only blocks from the club, so we walked hand in hand down the street. We walked right past Herman and the lady he’d been dancing with all night, as they stood outside talking.
When we retuned to the apartment, Willie went inside first. Like he’d never left, he went through all of the four rooms, including the bathroom, and examined them for signs of deception.
“What’s wrong, Willie?”
“Nothing; I want to know what’s been going on ’round here.”
“What do you mean, Willie?”
A frown rippled across his stiff face and his mahogany eyes bore into mine. “I don’t like the way that man looked at you. And I don’t like the way you sang for him. Seem like somebody’s been messing up ’round here.”
His vigilance hadn’t let up all week. While Willie slept, I put on a plain plaid straight skirt and white blouse and went to the corner store to purchase food for breakfast. Willie loved country cooking, hot grits with butter, fried ham and eggs. Yet my mind wasn’t on cooking. I was thinking about how much I missed Herman’s touch.
CHAPTER 5
CARRIE
After Papa’s death, everything started to go wrong. Momma stopped acting like herself. My brothers started arguing because Papa wasn’t there to settle them down. And then I learned I wasn’t even related to any of them.
I found out the first day of school. Students gathered under the old pine tree outside the schoolhouse to tell stories about their summer vacations. One girl had gone to see her grandma. A boy bragged about riding in his uncle’s Studebaker. Another had gone to Washington, D.C., which was every child’s wish. For my brothers and me, school was actually our vacation. We could escape working all day in the tobacco field, summer garden and the winter garden of turnips, cabbage, and collards.
School had its ups and its downs, but for me, it was mostly ups. It was where all the children of Jefferson received their first experience with independence, enough freedom to dream.
Everything we wore on the first day of school was brand-spanking new. All summer Momma had sewn burlap and cotton dresses for me, and trousers and shirts for my brothers. To top it off, she’d ordered us new shoes right out of the Sears mail-order catalog.
When we arrived at school, the first person I noticed was Anna Smith. She stood out as bright as a big yellow crayon. As always, she was surrounded by several girls who were listening intently to what she was talking about as if she was the mayor or someone important. When she glanced my way, all of a sudden the joy of my first day drained from my face.
“There she goes again,” I said, and sighed. When she pointed her chubby finger at me, I wanted to run. But instead, I threw my head back, squared my shoulders and strolled right past her. I heard her whisper to her friends, “That’s her.” Snickers broke out from the group, and I quickened my stride.
Ringing her cowbell, Mrs. Miller yelled, “Children, come into the schoolhouse now. It’s time to begin!” I was a bit relieved.
My brother, John, spoke up. “Now, don’t pay Anna Smith no mind this year, Sis. She got to have a problem, staring at people the way she do.” Then he turned back toward her and gazed at her so deeply that she was forced to look away.
“You’re right,” I agreed, and privately smirked as I strolled inside the run-down schoolhouse with both of my brothers by my side.
Hester saw me when I came through the door, waved her hand and patted the empty seat beside her. “I saved a seat for you,” she said as I eased into it. Hester was like a big sister, even though we were the same age. She wasn’t a big talker, more an observer who knew what was going on. She spent a good deal of time looking out for me and giving advice. Hester’s skin was a beautiful mocha chocolate, and her hair reached almost down to her waist. She was what folks called a Black Indian. She simply said she was mixed up. We didn’t live too far apart, but we only saw each other during the school term. She was the first to get a boyfriend and the first to become a woman. I usually followed Hester in about everything, except learning. I loved to read, and Mrs. Miller had grabbed Momma’s hand one Sunday after church. “If Carrie keeps on studying the way she has been, she could teach school one day.”
Since we had become teenagers, Hester and I had spent our recess combing our hair or whispering about boys, especially talking about the crush Hester had on my brother John.
When Anna walked through the door, I cringed. I wanted space between us. But all sixteen of us students were in close quarters. The younger children sat in the front of the classroom at an old scuffed-up oak table that had been around as long as the school, and the rest of us sat at desks behind them. Mrs. Miller’s desk faced the class and the wood-burning stove was in the back.
Mrs. Miller had been away from Jefferson County only once. The two years she’d spent at Howard to obtain a teacher’s diploma was long enough to her. According to Mr. Miller, who was as happy being a farmer as she was teaching school, he’d laid claim to her long before she left for college. He was uneducated himself, but for his wife’s sake, he’d listen to her read all day long. She adored him. Their two children sat in the front desk in class, close to Mrs. Miller, so she could give them an evil eye if they ever decided to get out of place. I admired her, and each day that I sat there and practiced, and read, I was that much closer to vacating Jefferson for a teaching diploma of my own. She was my role model.
Traditions of education had been passed down to Mrs. Miller from the women in her family. Her great-grandmother learned to read from her slave master’s wife, so the story went. Mrs. Johnson, behind her husband’s back, taught a few of her house slaves basic words, and gave them books to hide under the floorboards in the slaves’ quarters. This started an educational revolution that was passed down to Mrs. Miller, and she continued to enlighten us any way she could.
Mrs. Miller took roll, as we did each morning, and started a review of the alphabet. She divided the class into different groups, mixing those who could read with those having problems. My stomach turned a somersault when Mrs. Miller said, “Carrie, join the group in the left corner of the room.”
As I dragged my chair in the direction of the group, I tried to hide my feelings. Anna began to snicker at me, along with two other girls. Ignoring them, I opened a book and began reading. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw Anna nudge a thinner, dark-skinned girl beside her. I became tense and defensive, balling up my fist as I held the book. I even stumbled over a few of the words. Finally I asked, “What are y’all laughing at? Is there something funny around here?” I rolled my eyes to let them know how I was feeling.
“Nawl, only you,” Anna said, and then she glanced at her buddies for approval.
I sat straight up. “I don’t understand. What am I doing that is so darn funny?”
At first no one said anything. And when I thought I’d taken control of the situation, Anna said, “Well, you think you’s bette
r’n me, but you ain’t. You’s just like the rest of us.” She slapped the arm of the girl sitting next to her. “You don’t know e’rythang. Bet nobody told ya that you’s be my sista.” In reply, I snapped my eyes shut, and when I opened them again, I rolled them way back in my head. It was the silliest thing I’d ever heard.
“Gurl, you heard me. Now what ya say? You can‘t talk? Cat got yo’ tongue?” Her voice was raspy and bitter.
I leaned over and locked eyes with her. “Don’t you have anything else to do but dream? You wish I was your darn sister.”
By then, everyone nearby was listening in, including the little children.
My first reaction was to give her a further piece of my mind, but I kept my cool. I didn’t need the attention of the entire class. What kind of sick person would make up something so stupid?
“Listen, girl,” I said softly, once the other group had turned back to reading, “There is no way we can be kin. I don’t even know you. All I know is that you don’t like me, and I don’t know why.”
Anna raised her voice. “You’s right ’bout that. I don’t like ya like my ma don’t like you. That’s why she gave you up. She ain’t want you; you her bastard.” An outburst of laughter broke out amongst the other girls.
My mouth flew open, and I started to tremble. I raised my hand to slap her but caught myself. Instead, I held my hand extended and then forced myself to withdraw.
“Gurl, I know you ain’t crazy,” Anna said, and held her hand up to ward off the slap.
“No, I’m not, but you are,” I said.
I struggled to get through the group reading session, biting my lip to keep from going off. The girls stopped laughing and playing long enough to read aloud in the group after Mrs. Miller calmed them down.
The rest of the day was almost unbearable. Anna’s words kept dancing inside my head. I didn’t feel any different from the rest of my family, and all of us were treated the same. But for some reason, I knew Anna hadn’t made it up. Once, Hester had asked me if I was Anna’s cousin. She thought we favored. The more I thought about it, my brothers and I did not favor at all. They were lean, tall, chocolate, and very handsome. I was short, stubby, and peach-colored, with sharp, keen features, like those of Mrs. Ferguson.
On the way home, I wondered how much my brothers had overheard. John never missed anything.
“What that girl say to you?” he asked, on cue.
“Nothing,” I quickly said.
“She said something,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to have to shut her up.”
“Did you hear anything?” I asked both of my brothers.
“Naw, I don’t pay her no attention,” Carl answered.
“Why were you so quiet in there?” John asked.
“I’m tired.”
“Too tired enough to get Anna off you? ’Cause that can be handled.”
I resisted allowing my protective brother to get involved. I was afraid he might forget the oath he’d promised to Papa that he would never ever hit a woman. Besides, as quiet as I kept it, I wanted to whip her butt myself.
Momma was cooking when we got home and the aroma of chicken frying and black-eyed peas stewing greeted us at the door. The aroma normally would make me salivate, but I couldn’t think about food. All I wanted was to rest and protect my bruised ego.
“Chile, you’d better eat. We don’t waste food ’round here,” Momma warned me at the table.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
I tried to shake the thoughts Anna had stirred around in my head, but was still thinking about family after we finished eating. My brothers went outside for their chores and Momma ordered me to get a pail of water from the well.
I smacked my lips. The only time she talked to me was when she needed something done.
“Did you hear me?” she asked.
“Yeah, I heard you,” I mumbled.
She turned around sharply. “What did you say?”
“I said, yes, ma’am.” Under my breath, I mumbled, “Why don’t you do it yourself?”
Times like these, I wished our well had a pump like the Fergusons had. Also I wished we weren’t so dad-blamed country, living out in the wilderness away from people and activity.
I didn’t know how to tell my momma that I really needed to talk to her, and that I had about all I could take from Anna Smith.
“Chile, why are you moving so slow ’round here this evening?”
“It’s ’cause I want to,” I said audaciously, doing something I knew was disrespectful. Before I could move, she slapped the living hell out of me. The sound echoed throughout the house, at least in my ears. She left her handprint on my cheek, left my skin stinging like it was on fire. I grabbed my cheek, felt ashamed, but couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
I blurted out, “You’re not my real momma anyways.” My stomach dropped. I knew what I’d said was out of line. I was too distraught to run for my life, so I stood there. My knees locked together.
A frown spread across her face. Her eyebrows arched and her beautiful round eyes transformed into slits. “Where on earth did you get such a notion? Chile, you and I are ’bout to come unbenefited!” Those were Momma’s famous words when she was mad. She stood beside the sink with her arms folded across her chest and waited for me to say something back to her. I was silent. I knew her next move would be a lick across my behind.
At last, Momma put down the dish towel in her hand. “Sit down. It’s time we talked.” She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. I sat down, too, and waited for Momma to start.
She pointed her finger at me. “You’ve got something stewing around in your mind. And whatever it is, it is making you do things that are out of the ordinary. I want to know what is going on.”
I sniffed and snorted back tears. “There’s this girl at school and she said that I’m her sister. She makes fun of me and some of the other girls laugh at me, too.”
“Now, I done told you children about people. You know everybody don’t mean you no good. And you should not listen to that type of person.”
“But, Momma, she won’t leave me alone.”
“She’ll leave you alone.”
“Momma, are the things she says true?” Teardrops dripped from the corners of my eyes. I wiped them with the back of my hand, but I couldn’t stop them from flowing.
Momma got up and hugged me. Though I was surprised, I emptied myself in her bosom.
She gazed at me with tears in her eyes, too.
“You know, Chile, the Lord is still in control.”
I slid closer to her and listened.
“I was twenty-one when I got you. And I didn’t think ’bout all of this happening. Didn’t know you’d go to school with any of Minnie’s children; didn’t know they’d know, and I didn’t think they’d tease you ’bout something you didn’t know ’bout.”
As she told the story, I started to well up again, since I could feel the pain Momma had as she talked.
“You were just under two years old when I got you,” she said, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“I had two young boys of my own and Minnie, your real momma, had one younger than you and another on the way. I got you ’cause one day at church I heard ’bout a chile that was burnt. They said it was an accident; said the man had knocked a pan of boiling water on the chile. But Mrs. Jackson, another member at the church, said it was really that he didn’t want no illegitimate chile in his house.” She gestured to no one in particular. “I don’t know. I wanted to help. So I went to see your momma. And when I seen you, I asked if I could have you.”
As Momma told the story, I began to realize how special I was.
“Minnie told me her husband didn’t like you too much. He didn’t like feeding nobody else’s chile. Lord, you were puny. You were burnt all over your body, especially on your hands and face, like you were asking to be picked up. I left with you that day. I carried you home and you became my little girl. I went down to the courthouse and filed the pap
ers. Folks used to tell me the ugly slick scabs covering your face and hands made them sick at the stomach. But it didn’t bother me one bit. My people were from Africa, knew how to heal wounds. I used shea butter, aloe vera, bitter leaf and even tobacco from the earth to heal you. You see now they don’t need to run.”
So this began a new era in my life. I had other kinfolk, and I was determined to find out what they were like. It was all fortunate, because while I was visiting my new relatives, I was able to avoid our new guest at home.
CHAPTER 6
CARRIE
“Good evening, young lady, your momma in?” He talked fast and his smooth voice unsettled me. I felt a cold chill travel through my limbs, and a tingling in my fingers. The feeling was always a warning to me that something strange was about to happen. I’d last experienced it the day Papa died.
“Yes, she’s in,” I said through the crack in the door.
Momma quickly appeared at the door, too, and stood behind me as I greeted her guest. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, but he lacked substance, absent of any distinctive features. He didn’t have nice thick hair, white teeth, or skin smooth as milk. He was short compared to Papa, who was nearly six feet five inches tall. The only distinctive thing about him was his clothes. He had on cuffed plaid trousers and laced shoes. Most of the men we knew wore boots, except to church. His fingers were long and thin and edged with clean fingernails that made them too delicate for work.
“Come in,” I said, and turned toward Momma. “He wants to see you.”
“I can see, Chile,” Momma said. She threw open the door, and he followed close behind her into the front room. He took a seat on the Davenport sofa and crossed his thin legs. Momma sat down beside him. I stood at the door, grateful that he hadn’t sat in my papa’s seat. Momma glanced over at me and gave me her infamous stern face. I received her signal and went into the kitchen.
In less than ten minutes, he was walking into our kitchen behind Momma with a smile spread from ear to ear. Momma invited him to sit while she attended to the food already cooking on the stove.
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