Glorious (4 page)
Sara Lee.
She was beyond high yellow, closer to alabaster in color, with a thick tail of black hair that dangled down her back. Easter imagined its weightiness and visualized how she would coil the braid around Sara Lee’s pretty little neck and choke the light out of her eyes.
In class, Sara Lee sat beside Getty and it was all he could do to keep from staring at her. During recess he showed himself up, strutting like a cock and grinning like a minstrel-show buffoon. Easter watched the display and tiny explosions went off in her chest.
Getty began walking Sara Lee home from school, carrying her books in the crook of his arm—where Easter’s head used to lay.
Two, three, and then five weeks went by and Getty avoided Easter’s advances and pretended not to see the little notes she left between the pages of his copy of
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
.
Easter’s anger festered and her jealousy turned into a mite beneath her skin that kept her up at night pacing the floors and clawing at her flesh.
Well it
looks
like my handwriting
, she thought,
but it definitely isn’t. I don’t write my
e
that way, or my
s
or my
a.
The letter was an accumulation of her unraveling that had started on the school day when Easter looked down to find that she was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe. And there was that Wednesday when she was snatched out of her sleep by a loud banging at her door. When she opened it, she was met with the fretful face of Miss Abigail.
“The minister sent word to check on you. Are you sick?”
“No,” Easter responded, dragging a hand through her unkempt hair.
“Then why,” the old woman asked as she peered over Easter’s shoulder into the shuttered room, “are you not at school today?”
Easter yawned, “Because it’s Saturday.” Her voice dripped with annoyance.
The woman bristled and snapped, “No, it’s Wednesday.”
Easter peered down at the letter again.
Getty,
What of the love you whispered in my ear when you were buried deep inside of me? Was that a lie? Or has that bright bitch cast a spell on you? I beg you, meet me at our place by the river so that we can talk.
I love you.
Minister Tuck scratched the bald spot at the center of his head with one hand and used the other to fish his handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his jacket. He dabbed the cloth against his nose.
“You have been an exemplary teacher, Miss Bartlett, but as of late …” His words dropped away as he attended to his nose.
Easter waited.
“You seem to be distracted. But this …” Again his words faded, his face flushed scarlet, and he seemed to look to Easter to finish his thought. When she offered no help, he started again, dropping his voice an octave. “This is a Christian school, Miss Bartlett, and this,” he said, tapping his finger angrily against the letter, “is inappropriate. I would have to report it to the authorities. He is a child, you know, just fifteen years old.”
No, Easter did not know, and her head snapped up in surprise and disbelief. The reaction was telling. Minister Tuck fell back into his chair as if he’d been shot in the heart.
“Of … of course you would have to report it if I’d written it, but I didn’t,” Easter stammered. “I’m insulted that you would think me capable of such a thing.” Easter stood up. “It’s a joke. A childish prank,” she continued, her hands gripping the edge of the desk.
Minister Tuck was a man of God, a man of the cloth, but he was still a man, an imperfect being, and he’d had his waywardness, oh yes, his flesh had been weak. But he was a man, and certain behaviors were expected of men. But a woman?
Minister Tuck picked up the letter and shook it at Easter. “People have seen you two
together
.”
Who?
she wanted to ask. They’d been careful. Very careful.
“Yes,” Easter barked and straightened her back. “I have tutored him on occasion.”
“Watch your tone, Miss Bartlett. You need to tread lightly.”
“You tread lightly, sir!” Easter bellowed back at him.
Tuck was stunned and reeled back in his chair. Easter’s face contorted with rage. She looked like a trapped animal and he had no doubt that she would pounce on him if he made any sudden moves. So they glared at one another, each waiting for the other to fold, and then finally Easter did and the anger whistled out of her.
Tuck slowly raised his hand and wrapped his fingers around the small silver cross that hung around his neck. Easter cleared her throat, smoothed the pleats of her dress, and calmly eased herself down into the chair.
Then she asked, “Where did you get this letter?”
She knew it had to be the girl. Sara Lee had probably fished it from his pocket during some childish act of foreplay.
Tuck squeezed the cross until the prongs cut into his palm and said, “The boy gave it to me.”
P
raise the Lord if it ain’t Easter Bartlett!”
Their reintroduction took place in the colored car of the Atlantic Coast Line headed to Virginia. Easter had given the chestnut-brown woman a blank look. The eyes had seemed familiar, but the sophisticated hairstyle and dapper attire had thrown her.
“C’mon now,” the woman said as she wiggled her behind into the seat beside Easter. “It’s me, Madeline! Don’t be that way. We go too far back for you not to remember me.”
Easter looked harder.
The woman grinned, proudly patted her bobbed hair, and licked her painted lips before she curled her palm around her mouth, leaned close to Easter’s ear, and whispered, “Mattie Mae Dawkins, from down home Waycross, girl!”
Easter’s neck snapped. “For real?”
Mattie Mae Dawkins was calling herself Madeline now, and Easter supposed it was the right thing to do because she didn’t look much like the tenant farmer’s daughter Easter had known her to be.
Mattie Mae’s grin spread and she bubbled, “Sure nuff.”
“Why did you change your name?”
Madeline huffed, “Mattie Mae is country, and I’m a city girl now.”
“What city would that be?”
Madeline’s face unstitched and her fizzle went flat. “Why, New York City!” she said, as if that was the only city in the country or even the world.
“Oh.”
Madeline was returning to New York from Florida, where she’d spent two weeks with her sister and newborn nephew. She was heading back to Harlem, where she had a job in a beauty shop and a room in a row house.
Easter smiled inwardly. If she’d had any doubts about this woman being the former Mattie Mae Dawkins, the not-so-new Madeline had put them to rest. The rambling, the babbling, endless waves of words was vintage Mattie Mae. Easter was ecstatic to have her talking a mile a minute in her ear. Madeline reminded her of home and Easter was suddenly awash with nostalgia. And then the good feeling cracked when Madeline said, “Heard about your mama. Sorry …”
She didn’t mention Rlizbeth and Easter was thankful. The dead were better off than the living, so Easter knew her mother was fine. But she’d run off and left Rlizbeth in that house with that man who used to be her father and his new wife. Every day she tried not to think about that, and every day she failed.
“Thank you,” Easter said and patted Madeline’s knee.
The steel wheels of the train churned, streaking them past trees, homes, and children lined alongside the tracks, bearing teeth and pink gums as they hopped in place and waved gleefully at the passengers.
“So, where you headed?” Madeline asked.
“Richmond.”
“Richmond? I didn’t know you had people there.”
Easter didn’t have a soul there. But she’d purchased a ticket that would take her to the end of the line and the end of the line was Richmond, Virginia. Seemed as good a place as any.
“I don’t.”
Madeline frowned. “Well, why in the world you going there then? You got a job waiting for you?”
Easter shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”
She didn’t understand either. “Just some place new I guess.”
Madeline brightened. “Like an adventure?”
Easter’s brow knitted. That was the other thing about Mattie Mae—now-Madeline, she was light and airy in her head with a strong tendency toward childishness.
“Yes, something like that I suppose.”
“I love adventures,” Madeline squealed, and clapped her hands together like a four-year-old before setting off on a story: “When I first went to New York …”
Easter rested her head against the window and allowed Madeline’s words to wash over her.
The train pulled into Richmond under a heavy sky. The platform was wet and the air moist. Children ran up and down the platform stomping their feet in the puddles of water the afternoon showers had left behind. Porters buzzed busily, but kept their heads lowered, careful not to make direct eye contact with the men who’d been sent down from Detroit to recruit workers for the Ford Motor Company. Ford was paying his employees five dollars a day and Southern states found their cheap labor streaming out of their towns and cities as quickly as sand through a sieve.
Some recruiters had been abducted and beaten. But Ford just sent more in their place and so the railroad officials had begun to systematically prohibit the sale of northbound tickets to Negroes or inflate the price to such an exorbitant level that it became unaffordable.
Easter followed Madeline into the colored waiting area. She’d promised to sit with her until the train headed to New York arrived. They bought two oranges, squeezed into a space on a long, wooden bench, and quietly worked at peeling the thick skin from the fruit.
“I really think you should come with me to New York,” Madeline suggested for the umpteenth time. “I can get you a job at the hair salon and I can’t see my landlady minding you staying with me until you got your own place.”
Easter bit into the wedge of fruit and the sweet juice coated the inside of her cheek. She didn’t have an excuse not to go and couldn’t rationalize why she felt so resistant to the idea.
“Easter, it’s not like anyplace you’ve ever been before.”
Easter laughed to herself. Where had Madeline been that allowed her to make such a grand statement? Waycross, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida, that’s it.
Madeline pressed, “You ain’t got nobody here; at least in New York you’d have me and my aunt Minnie in the Bronx.”
Easter chuckled, “She still make ambrosia?”
Madeline nodded and her face brightened. She was wearing Easter down. “Oh, say you’ll come,” she whined. “If you don’t like it you can always leave.”
Easter thought about it for a moment. “Okay.”
The conductor rang his bell and hollered, “All aboard!” The whistle sounded and the train huffed great billowing clouds of steam. Easter clutched her ticket tightly in her hand. She was headed to New York. A quiet excitement percolated in her stomach and she felt a smile light on her lips. When the nose of the train edged across the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, a young, dark porter appeared and unceremoniously removed the tin sign above the doorway that stated,
COLORED.
The car exploded in applause and hearty whoops went up into the air. Couples kissed one another full on the lips. Parents grabbed hold of their children and squeezed. Easter felt something lift off of her shoulders and her leg began to bounce with anticipation.
With the Mason-Dixon line behind them, the train barreled at a reckless speed toward New York.
N
othing in the world could have prepared her—not Madeline’s descriptions, not anything she’d read in her beloved books, not even what her imagination had conjured up over the years.
Pennsylvania Station was brimming with people all in motion. The red caps moved fluidly between the masses as if they themselves traveled along an invisible track.
“Porter, ma’am? Porter, sir?”
Madeline clasped Easter by the hand, dragging her swiftly along behind her. “Keep up, girl. If I lose you in this crowd we’ll never find each other!”
Easter’s mind whirled and she realized that she was panting—sights, sounds, and the beautiful chaos of it all had literally snatched her breath away.
In the subway Easter and Madeline stood on the platform amidst dozens—no, hundreds—of other people of a variety of colors. Easter stared down the dark throat of the tunnel and saw a pair of dim eyes peering back at her. As the train chugged closer its eyes brightened and Easter’s body went still. The train leapt into the station with a thunderous growling wind that whipped Easter’s hair into her eyes.
They packed in.
The fans spun noisily above their heads as the passengers were swept along through the eerie darkness of the tunnels. A stop and more people piled in. Bodies pressed against the doors and each other. When the train began to scale an invisible incline, passengers planted their feet and tightened their grip on the poles and dangling leather straps. Up, up, up they went. Easter imagined that they were climbing into the sky, into the heavens. They climbed up and into glittering sunlight. The train came to a halt, the door slid open revealing a black and white sign:
135th Street.
Madeline nudged her toward the open door and whispered, “This is Harlem.”
The air up there, up south, up in Harlem, was sticky sweet and peppered with perfume, sweat, sex, curry, salt meat, sautéed chicken livers, and fresh baked breads. The streets teamed with automobiles, streetcars, and horse-drawn wagons. Brick buildings lined the sidewalks like soldiers. On the street corners young boys cried, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” An elderly woman beckoned people over to peruse her wagon packed with pots and pans, and a legless man stretched out on a slab of wood fitted with wheels used his hands like fish fins and swam through the streets begging for nickels.
Easter’s ears rang with the city sounds, the familiar twang of Southern tongues and the Northern strum that Madeline had adopted. They made a stop at a fruit cart and while Madeline fretted over the peaches, Easter was spirited away by the singsong language of a dark and gleaming West Indian couple. Mesmerized, she found herself walking alongside them, gawking like a child.
“Eh-eh,” the woman sounded, and pressed her purse firmly against her breast when she caught Easter staring.
Easter continued to stare, waiting for one or both of them to spout another beautiful word, but the woman just rolled her eyes and hastened her pace. The man, though, offered a broad smile filled with teeth as white as piano keys.
She and Madeline turned down East 133rd Street, which was a block in stark contrast to the frenzy of Lenox Avenue. Shaded and quiet, the street was lined with brownstone homes, with brass door handles that twinkled in the late-day sun.
As they walked Madeline raised her hand in greeting and called out to neighbors who watched from their front yards.
“Afternoon, Miss Trundle.”
“Hey, girl, yeah, I’m back. You ain’t working today? Oh, this here is my friend Easter.”
“Mr. Carson, your cat feeling any better?”
“Don’t get no ideas, Charlie, I already done warned her about the likes of you!”
Number 17 was a narrow brownstone home that sat between a redbrick horse stable and an identical brownstone. The slender hall held a stairway that spiraled up to the third floor. The wood floors creaked beneath their feet and the scent of lemon oil lingered in the air. Madeline knocked on the closed pocket door. When no response came she walked to the end of the hallway, leaned girlishly over the banister, and called down: “Miss Chappo?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Madeline.”
“Yes?”
“Can you come up here, please? I’d like to ask you something.”
There was a long silence and then, “You can come down.”
The garden level was comprised of a cozy front bedroom with a fireplace and shuttered windows. The kitchen sat at the back. Beyond that was a bathroom and cold storage shed that led out into a rectangular yard.
“Miss Chappo, this is my friend from back home, Easter Bartlett.”
Chappo Elliott stood barely five feet tall, with a thick mass of reddish-brown hair that had been separated and plaited into four braids. Her light complexion was splattered with freckles. Georgia born and raised, she’d lived in Kentucky for eight years before moving to Harlem with her husband and son.
Chappo said, “Nice to meet-cha.”
Madeline began to plead Easter’s case and Chappo listened as she floured whiting and chicken legs for frying. It was Friday and she lived just a block away from the cabarets of Jungle Alley. In a few hours, black and white alike would be lined up outside of her house to purchase her fifty-cent food plates.
Madeline rambled on and Chappo nodded and smiled where she was supposed to, her eyes swinging between Madeline and Easter, who Chappo decided was wearing an unmistakable glow. If Madeline was going to ask what Chappo thought she was going to ask, the answer would have to be no.
Five women in one house?
That was entirely too much pussy under one roof and she didn’t want to dangle additional temptation in front of her husband. She’d only just replaced her rolling pin after using it to bash him across the head when she caught him peering up the dress of one of the tenants as she climbed the stairs. Allowing Easter to move in—as plain and as waifish as she was—would still be a problem, because plain or not she still had a
split
and her husband was still the man he was and Chappo didn’t want to have to ruin yet another rolling pin.
And besides, her twelve-year-old son was coming into season so technically that would be
two
heads to clobber. And whether this girl knew it or not, she was with child and Chappo didn’t do babies—and so the answer would have to be absolutely, positively no.
But when Madeline said that Easter could pay three weeks up front, the freckles across Chappo’s face started dancing. She was a money-hungry woman and she knew it wasn’t the Christian way, but God knew her heart and that’s all that mattered.
“How long you expectin’ to stay?”
Easter muttered something and Chappo cocked an ear in her direction. “Say again?”
Easter spoke up. “Just until I get a place of my own.”
What kind of answer was that?
Just until I get a place of my own.
That could take weeks, months, and by then the girl would be close to her time—well, if she decided to keep it. Of course, if she decided to go the other way Chappo could certainly help her out with that, for a fee.
“Well I got rules here. I don’t ’low no mens runnin’ in and outta my house. You can have a gentleman caller every now and then, but you got to keep company in the front parlor. You pay your rent every Monday, I don’t wanna hear no ’scuses. Understand?”
“Yessum,” Easter agreed.
The women turned to leave, but Chappo called out, “Wait a minute, I gotta ask you something.”
“Ma’am?”
“Do you love Jesus?”
“Yes ma’am, I do.”
Madeline’s room was larger than the other three on the top floor and overlooked 133rd Street. That first night, after a meal of Chappo’s fried chicken and potato salad, the two friends climbed into the double-sized Murphy bed and tucked the sheet tight beneath their chins. Madeline drifted quickly into slumber, but Easter was too excited to sleep and lay awake for most of the night, clapping her heels together, her ears anxiously tuned into Harlem’s nocturnal sounds: the soft braying of the horses in the next door stable, the baritone and sopranos belting their hearts out in a distant cabaret, a woman passionately calling out to her husband. Easter inhaled, filling her nostrils with the mixed scents of Madeline’s hair, the dizzying aroma of the cheap perfume worn by the girl in the next room, and the cinnamon that Chappo had set to boil to mask the scent of the cooking fish.
Soon her eyes became heavy and she fell asleep and dreamed she was dancing on the moon.
