“Ouch,” I warn him he got me, again.
“Ain’t nobody told her, yet,” Reggie stops, poking his lips out and rolling his eyes so I know he’s annoyed. “Beauty hurts.” He frowns at me like something stink. “Now be still and hold your arms up.”
If not for being curious and wanting to see how all this gone turn out I wouldn’t’ve been done. Reggie been yelling at me since I got here.
“Good afternoon, I’m A’Lelia Walker.” The woman steps closer offering her hand, over Reggie.
Reggie looks at her hand like he might bite it, then at me in the mirror, daring us to shake hands.
A’Lelia take her hand back laughing a little acknowledging how crazy Reggie is.
I stare at ‘a. She got deep rich brown skin, the color of good earth, a solid built, bright white teeth and she real tall for a woman. In them boot heels, if I what’n up on this platform, even I might have to look up in a’ eyes cause she taller than me, most women ain’t.
“Oh excuse me for being rude,” Ms. Lula Belle offers.
“I don’t know why you excusing yourself, queen, you was raised by slaves. What they know about the etiquettes of socializing, honey?” Reggie tease ‘a.
“Don’t get started, sissy,” Ms. Lula Belle warn him laughing, then say, “This is Linny my neighbor.”
“She a new bull dagger,” Reggie jump in.
“With a name like Linny, it sounds like she’s been around awhile.” A’Lelia take me in, again.
I can’t believe I’m being introduced to the daughter of millionaire Madam CJ Walker. Coley would eat her heart out to be here. I remember Coley going to one of Walker’s salons to get her hair done. I look at A’Lelia’s hair, pressed to perfection, and a hat cocked to the side like she dressed for taking pictures.
“Hello?” A’Lelia waves ‘a hand in front of my face, and I realize I’ve been in a daze, staring at ‘a hair. “I asked you, what is Linny short for?”
“Pardon me,” I say, not realizing I use the word ‘pardon.’ Shaking my head and anchoring myself I answer, “Madelyn, I’m Madelyn Remington named for my great grandmother. Some folks still called her Maddy when I was born, so they called me Linny instead of that.”
“Now that’s more than I knew about her,” Ms. Lula Belle say, making this snooty face with a nose at Reggie. Then sit back down, crossing ‘a legs like she in possession of her own self, got more of herself than any other woman I know.
“Remington sounds like a powerful name,” A’Lelia adds.
“It ain’t,” I promise ‘a, “I’m just an ordinary field nigga from Zion, Georgia.”
My last words make the room tense and cold. Everything get silent. Reggie and Ms. Lula Belle having a whole conversation with they eyes and avoiding A’Lelia’s. Maybe I spoke too easy. Maybe they can’t believe I said that word. Maybe that what’n the best way to put it. Coley always said I shouldn’t use ‘nigga.’ Maybe that word offends Ms. Walker. I want to apologize but I’m tongue tied.
Reggie creep round me silently, look in my face, and then back in the mirror like Iain been standing there this whole time. After while, A’Lelia start laughing, loud. Then Ms. Lula Belle and Reggie join. I realize they was waiting to see how A’Lelia took what I said, so they’d know how to react.
That’s when A’Lelia say, “No, you aren’t ordinary, and you’re far from a field nigga.”
“And she blue blooded too,” Reggie add, “whether it matter to her or not, that alone be opening doors.”
“Doors even having money doesn’t get me in,” A’Lelia admit.
“I don’t know about that,” Ms. Lula Belle challenge ‘a.
“Unfortunately, it’s too true. There are women in the circles I’m in, who won’t even acknowledge me because of my dark skin. Most well off Coloreds concerned about status, lineage, keeping what they got and breeding lighter skin children. That’s part of our problem as a race. That’s a whole nother discussion.
My dark skin is the main reason I throw so many parties. I want Negroes who look down on me and Mama cause we dark and got new money, to know they ain’t hurting nothing by excluding us. I want to show them it ain’t just about color. There is more to a person than their skin color.
I host kings, queens, stars, artists, heads of states, leaders and rich people from all over the world. My parties are internationally known. They are larger than these simple minded niggas round here. My parties are the most extravagant and well attended in our class. I’ve toured the world just like monied whites. I know a little bit about everything and some of everybody.”
“You do throw the best parties,” Ms. Lula Belle add. “I can’t tell you how many connections I’ve made I never would have if not in attendance. I make sure I never miss one.”
“You’re so handsome, you gone have to fight’em off of you.” A’Lelia warn me, smiling.
“Thank you,” I say sincerely without looking at ‘a or smiling. The word ‘handsome’ do something to me. I appreciate being called handsome the way I think most women would being called beautiful. It make me feel shy. I hope how serious I look when we make eye contact in the mirror don’t make ‘a think wrong of me. When I get shy, people think I got bad manners. I’m hoping I don’t offend ‘a.
“And your honesty is a breath of fresh air. I get tired of meeting niggas ain’t got nothing pretending they have. Putting on airs and burying themselves in debt for the likes of impressing folks. Matter of fact, I think, next time I have a party you should come.”
“She’ll be there,” Ms. Lula Belle promise.
Then I can’t hide my smile.
“She gone be sharp as a tack too,” Reggie brag on his work moving back to get a different perspective.
“It’s getting late,” A’Lelia say glancing at the clock up on the wall. “I got to pick my daughter up. Me and May meeting Mama for dinner. So I’m gone git on out of here.” Then she stop, nod her head in approval, taking me in again.
Reggie and A’Lelia disappear. I can hear him somewhere, helping ‘a get ‘a things together.
I put my arms down, looking at myself in the mirror, thinking. All my life I been told how I should wear dresses, feel honored I had long hair, hold my tongue, and how no man would want me if I had my own mind. Iain never wanted no man. I always knew I wanted to be with a woman; just didn’t never think one would want me back.
Standing here, I’m realizing there are other women who like women. Now somebody telling me those women ain’t gone be able to keep they hands off of me. I see now, how you might find yourself in a place you ain’t never been or thought of going. I wonder if this ain’t the real reason some folks leave the south and never come back, cause they find a self they ain’t never knew existed. I should’ve got out of Zion sooner. Seem like for the first time, I’m looking at myself in the mirror.
Had that looking glass in my house for combing my hair, but then again it was so foggy you couldn’t hardly see nothing in it. It never mattered no how neither, what’n never too keen on seeing myself trapped in other folk’s expectations and limits. Now, I can’t take my eyes off myself all free to be who I am.
“Jackson? Are you done moving those darts on her trouser jacket?” Reggie calls out, they all standing behind me, looking at me looking at myself in the mirror. It’s like we all working together to make me, who I’m spose to be.
Then Jackson, a dark man with a low haircut and thin frame comes from out of another room, holding the jacket up walking towards me. They both help me get it on, Reggie turns me away from the mirror so I can’t see myself.
“Stop moving! We gone let you see when we done,” Reggie fusses.
“Yes,” Ms. Lula Belle say, nodding her head, as the two men pull and tug on me. The way Ms. Lula Belle watching me so close, feel like something big bout to happen and she scared she gone miss it.
“I think I’m done,” Reggie sings, stepping back nodding his head, like he going over a check list in his head. .
“Alright
now!” Ms. Lula Belle gently tug at my hem, arranging it over my shoes. Then she step back like she just put the final touches on her own creation.
When I find myself in the mirror, I feel sad. To see me, who I always was spose to be after all this time, it hurt it feel so good. Feel like I’m standing outside myself looking at someone else. I look at the leather men’s shoes peeking from under the hard press creased pants’ legs and I’m afraid, she ain’t me.
Then when I breathe deep taking me in, I know she me, cause she comfortable, and pleased. Then my spirit smile back at me.
“You look amazing.” Ms. Lula Belle smiles, and a few tears fill her eyes. “I always knew this was you. It’s even better than I imagined. May I have this dance?” She laughs, then grabs my hand.
For the first time, I actually want to dance, and I feel like crying too. We start a slow step around, and Reggie and Ms. Lula Belle hum a little tune.
We slow strut and step. Ms. Lula Belle leads first, but then our roles start to change, and I feel her starting to follow more than lead. I feel myself becoming more assured and more dominant as I learn the steps. Feels like there was no learning, I always knew the steps, but I was in the wrong shoes. I what’n never meant to follow, I was born to lead.
I’d have never found the nerve to move around like this, pushing her back and gliding this way in a dress. Humph, but if I ever have to wear a dress again, being in these pants gone change the way I come to dance. This suit done changed how I’m willing to be held. I lead. Something about knowing is soothing, I’m forever changed.
I start to hum the tune too. Funny how you know the rhythm of a song you’ve never heard, and how it’s your favorite song. As I’m turning Ms. Lula Belle in the mirror, something come over me, and I go with it. I lean into my steps, hold her tight, throw her back and she dips perfect.
“Yesss, honey! She has got her ‘Him’ down already, baby,” Reggie gushes encouraging me. “Jackson, come look at this!”
When I pull Ms. Lula Belle up on her heels, I say, “Thank you,” looking in her eyes.
“The pleasure was all mine,” she smiles, “I feel like such a lady.” Then she follows me closely like we’re old dance partners who’ve practiced for years.
I don’t know how long we are dancing, when I see us together over her shoulder. I take us in, from every angle in the mirrors. Then I remember Miemay’s dream of me, dancing with a lady and looking like a man.
Author Bio
Nik Nicholson is an author, poet, education performer, content editor and painter. Her short stories and poems are featured in several anthologies. This historical novel, Descendants of Hagar, won the 2013 Lambda Literary LGBT Debut Fiction Award. It's the first of a two-part series, which also includes Daughter of Zion, about a woman coming to terms with her masculinity during the early 1900’s.
In 2015, Nicholson was awarded the Regional Art Commission Artists Support Grant for 2015. Which funded research in Harlem for her second novel, Daughter of Zion.
Web home: http://www.niknicholson.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ArtistNik
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/artistnik
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/artistnik
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
THE WORD
Chapter Two
Doctor Visit
Chapter Three
Ain Dead Yet
Chapter Four
Lawyer
Chapter Five
Quilting Circle
Chapter Six
The Past
Chapter Seven
Have You Read The Word
Chapter Eight
Miemay’s New House
Chapter Nine
The Walk Home
Chapter Ten
Promises
Chapter Eleven
The Stand Off
Chapter Twelve
The Perfect Wife
Chapter Thirteen
Womanhood
Chapter Fourteen
Worried
Chapter Fifteen
Under One Roof
Chapter Sixteen
Naming
Chapter Seventeen
A Proper Lady
Chapter Eighteen
Entertaining Strangers
Chapter Nineteen
Northern School Teacher
Chapter Twenty
Hair
Chapter Twenty-One
Dinner with the Harpers
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Council
Chapter Twenty-Three
Church
Chapter Twenty-Four
Work
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zion Field Day
Chapter Twenty-Six
Learning Her Place
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sisters
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Accepting the Truth
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Beautiful
Chapter Thirty
Good Night
Chapter Thirty-One
The Store
Chapter Thirty-Two
Unspoken Truths
Chapter Thirty-Three
Impossible
Chapter Thirty-Four
Morning Baths
Chapter Thirty-Five
Family Business
Chapter Thirty-Six
Recruitor
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Some of Her Words
Chapter Thirty-Eight
An Appeal
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Fear
Chapter Forty
Worried
Chapter Forty-One
Women Vote
Chapter Forty-Two
Getting Ready
Chapter Forty-Three
Juke Joint
Chapter Forty-Four
Rituals
Chapter Forty-Five
Guilt
Chapter Forty-Six
Following My Heart
Daughter Of Zion
TAILORED TO FIT
Author Bio
Descendants of Hagar Page 37