“We know you do,” Mrs. Hall commented.
“Having family around is very important. We love it when you all are here. I just wish Simon was around more,” Mr. Hall said.
“I wish he was around too. It seems like me going to school is pulling us apart.”
“In these times, women and men need an education,” Mrs. Hall quickly said.
“I think the household is much happier when both parents are around. I think a woman ought to be home taking care of the house,” Mr. Hall said.
“It is the 1920s and women need to work too,” Mrs. Hall countered.
“Well, teaching is a good thing for women, but these days, women want to work in the fields beside the men. Most of them can outwork a man, and are almost as strong. I still think it is better for them to be at home.”
“Carrie, now don’t listen to him. You get your education and things will start to change. Remember, a few years ago, a lot of women, colored and white, walked together in Washington for better treatment. It was a movement for women to be treated fairly.”
“I think all women should be treated like queens. I don’t want to sound unappreciative. The missus knows I adore her,” Mr. Hall said.
Mrs. Hall peered across the table at him and smiled. I could see the twinkle in their eyes. He grinned.
“I am enjoying the conversation,” I got out in between bites of cornbread and the best stew I had ever tasted. “Mr. Hall, is it wrong for a married man to ride around another woman’s children without considering his own family?”
“No, not if the mother has given permission or if they are his own children.”
Mrs. Hall cut her eyes over at him as if to quiet him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing is wrong,” Mrs. Hall answered for the both of them.
Robert gobbled up every last bit of food on his plate. Mrs. Hall added a little more, and said, “You need to grow, little boy.”
When she talked, he smiled and when she spoke, he gave her his full attention. It was so warm at the Halls’ table. They seemed to share the same concerns and had the same amount of respect for each other. It took me back to a time when my papa was living. He always made us children feel special, and it was dinnertime we all looked forward to.
“You know, one day, if you don’t mind, we’d like to take Robert with us to Washington, D.C. We’ve got some relatives up there,” Mrs. Hall said.
“Kinfolk, darling; that’s what we call them,” he said.
“My husband’s aunt and cousins live up there and it has been a while since we’ve visited. His aunt is old and feeble,” Mrs. Hall said.
“Robert loves it here. You are our family,” I said.
Mr. Hall got up from the table and walked away, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
“You all right, Mr. Hall?” I asked.
“You and Robert are like the family we never had,” said Mrs. Hall. “He is just happy.”
Mrs. Hall put Robert on the floor and he ran into the parlor behind Mr. Hall.
“Mrs. Hall, I feel my marriage is about over,” I said, once we were alone.
“Is it because of your feelings for Adam?”
“I don’t think so. Adam is the best friend any girl could have. He is always there for me and in places I wish my husband could be.”
“Marriage should be centered on love. Do you love Simon?”
“Yes, Ma’am, I think I do.”
“If you are still in love with Simon, don’t go leading Adam on. He will never forgive you for that.”
“Mrs. Hall, maybe I’m falling out of love. Every time my husband and I are together, Nadine manages to come for a visit. Simon even had Nadine and her children in his car.”
“Well, there is nothing wrong with giving somebody a ride.”
“He’s been seen with her in Petersburg. The girls at the house told me about it.”
“They lie, too, young lady.”
“I know, but Adam saw him the same weekend in Petersburg.”
“Child, I feel sorry for you. You don’t know which way to turn.”
“I don’t, Mrs. Hall. I don’t.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“If Simon will not give you the truth, talk to Nadine. She is bound to come clean at some point.”
“I tried to talk to her and she just kept on walking.”
“Maybe you should try again. Walk across the street, and knock on her door.”
“I’m sort of scared. I really think she is more to Simon than a friend. I have caught her in my house before and now they are spending time together in Petersburg. Mrs. Hall, he’s never around when I’m ready to go back to school. I feel he doesn’t care anymore.”
“You left without him even knowing last time.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Of course he did. He asked me why you left without saying anything.”
“I left a note.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
I hesitated before I answered her. She kept peering over at me with those icy-blue eyes and I finally broke my silence. “I wanted to see Adam.”
“Did Adam go to school with you?”
“Yes, Ma’am, he did.”
“I think he is the one you’ve chosen to be with.”
“I trust him; he has always told me the truth.”
“You need to find out what your husband’s attraction to Nadine is. Then you need to be honest with yourself and Adam. He deserves the truth.”
As I listened to her speak, I realized my life had become more complicated with each year of living. With the move to Richmond, I had expected to be free of all the baggage and fear.
Chapter 14
Ms. Pearl was known in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and even North Carolina. As I walked down the road to school every day, I’d walk past places where posters with her picture on it were placed in the front window. It was very persuasive. She was the toast of the town. Many of the people from Petersburg gathered at the train depot on Friday evenings anxious to go to Richmond. They wanted to hear Pearl Brown and to see her “rotate her hips,” one man standing at the depot said, imitating how she moved. Miriam had asked me several times about her. “Is she as pretty as folks say?” My answer to her was yes.
Ms. Pearl was a beautiful lady and she knew it. When she walked, she threw her full bosom out, kept her back straight as an arrow and strutted across the floor. She had the kind of confidence many of us young women wanted. When people talked about her, she didn’t seem to mind. She would walk right past gossiping women and slyly smile. She appeared to live by her own standards, and not those of the people whispering behind her back.
Chatter was all around me. I could hear voices behind me talking about Ms. Pearl’s new man.
“How can she fool around with Kindred Camm? He is Herman’s brother,” one of the ladies riding the train home to Richmond said.
The lady riding beside her turned up her nose. “That woman is just a country floozy. She has probably been with every man in this town. People think she can sing. She can’t sing, either.”
“Now, Rosa, she can sing. She has got herself a good voice. I disagree with that.”
“Like I said, she is a slut,” I heard her say, as if it was a truth declared and signed off on.
“I’m going to see her perform,” the lady said.
“She can’t sing, I tell you. You are going to be wasting your hard-earned dollars.”
“I’m going to see her and I want you to go with me.”
“I ain’t going to see her sing. She ain’t like Bessie and Maggie. Now they can sing.”
“Rosa, you have never heard her sing. You need to stop gossiping about folks and come and see for yourself.”
“I might go while I’m up here.”
Ms. Pearl had people talking everywhere. Not all of the talk was positive. It was mainly about her love affairs and almost never her sing
ing. Listening to these women talk was the first time I had ever heard of her singing described as bad. She was the best singer I had ever heard, and most people would agree. The boisterous ladies swore right out that Kindred Camm was her new man and one of them said, “I sure hope that white man don’t find out; he just might kill him like he did poor Willie.”
When I heard them speak of Willie, my mouth flew wide open, and a chill traveled throughout my body. Simon and I had been at the club that night. We’d witnessed the entire thing. The white man was the killer, and he was still walking around like a peacock, as if he owned the club and Ms. Pearl.
The ride home was shaky. The train appeared extra crowded. It was the first of the month and the soldiers and a lot of the workers had just gotten paid. All of them were ready to live it up in the big city of Richmond.
Once the train stopped in Richmond, the people scattered in various directions. I skipped right past Adam’s place and headed down Broad Street toward Jackson Heights. The closer I got to the club, which had not opened yet for business, the more anxious I became about looking in on Ms. Pearl. When I turned the corner leading to Jackson Heights with my suitcase in my hand, I noticed Simon’s car parked on the corner beside the club.
I convinced myself Nadine was somewhere close by. I turned the knob on the club door, and it was unlocked. I opened the door and walked in. The bartender noticed me and said, “We are not open yet, Ma’am.”
“I know,” I responded. “I came to see Simon.”
“I remember you,” he said. “Simon’s in the back with Ms. Pearl.” He signaled with his head in the direction of the back room. I smiled and thanked him. Ms. Pearl was always in that room. It was her dressing room, yet I could sense a lot of other things happened there. I paused before knocking on the door, inhaled and then proceeded to tap lightly. I could hear stirring from the other side of the door. I patiently waited for someone to open up. The white man cracked opened the door and peered out at me. “What do you need?” he asked, in a deep baritone voice.
“I want to see Simon, please,” I said, my heart thumping hard in my chest.
He kept the door cracked and peeked around at the people in the room. “Simon, are you in here?”
I heard Simon’s voice. “Yeah, let ’em in.”
The white man opened the door and motioned for me to step in. I took a deep breath; a wave of fear had swept over me like a shadow. I struggled to contain my fear of what I might witness going on inside. I stood close to the door and my eyes panned the room. Simon was leaning back on the davenport with his legs crossed. When he saw me, he immediately stood up.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, without even greeting me.
Ms. Pearl spoke. She was sitting in front of a mirror admiring her hair, patting it down and smiling. In her other hand, she held a drink. She glanced at me and smiled. “Hi, Baby, how you doing?”
“I’m okay, Ms. Pearl,” I muttered. I was afraid.
“You sure?” she asked, twirling a curl in her fingers.
“Yes, Ma’am,” I replied.
She glanced at me and winked subtly.
Simon rushed over to me; he then tugged me by my hand and coaxed me toward the door. I locked eyes with Ms. Pearl, and she nodded at me. I didn’t dare murmur a word, but I gently smiled. Before I exited with Simon, I noticed the tall stack of greenbacks on the small table beside the davenport where he had been sitting. The room was more than a dressing room. A pistol was also on the table pointing toward the wall. And I wondered if it belonged to Simon. No telling what actually took place in the back room.
“What are you doing in here?” Simon asked as soon as we were out of the door.
“I saw your car outside.”
He peered down at me with his dark, almond-shaped eyes and they appeared cold and disturbed. He didn’t like me being there.
“Why are you here, Simon? Are you working?” He continued directing me out of the club.
“You shouldn’t be here; this is not the place for a lady. I told you to stay out of here.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Okay, but if it’s not an emergency, it could have waited until I made it home,” he said, coaxing me toward the front door.
“We need to talk.”
“Can it wait until I get home?”
“When are you coming home?”
“I’m going to drive you home right now. This is not the place for a decent young woman.”
“Why are you always here?”
He shook his head and did not answer me. He told the bartender, “Man, let Ms. Pearl know I will be right back.”
“Sho will,” the bartender answered as he continued to wipe the counter.
Simon picked up my bag and ushered me to the car.
“Simon, you are acting very strange.”
“I don’t think a girl barely eighteen ought to be in a club alone.”
I frowned.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, driving faster than usual.
“I heard you.”
He raised his voice. “Why are you always getting into my business, Carrie? Don’t I take good care of you?”
I took offense at his statement and tears welled up in my eyes.
“Now what is your problem?” he asked, as mean as he could be.
“Simon, you are not the man I used to know.”
He bit his lip, then he boldly said, “And you are not the same innocent young girl I met back in Jefferson. You are hanging out in nightclubs and have forgotten about your child. You done left him with a white lady to raise.”
What he said made me angry. I was breathing deeply, trying to control my temper. Simon drove past the corner store and there was Nadine walking down the sidewalk. She saw Simon and waved like an anxious child. When she noticed me in the car, she quickly turned her head and dropped her hand as if she had done something wrong. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m the same girl that wanted an education and I thought you were the same boy that wanted to play professional ball,” I reminded Simon.
“You have started to act like the city girls, hanging out in places good girls don’t belong.”
“Are you saying I act like Nadine?”
“Nadine don’t have nothing to do with us.”
“Well, why is she always in your car? And when she sees you, she acts like a young girl in love.”
He stopped in front of the tenement house. “Nadine is not in my car.”
“You know I am truly trying to get an education and Mrs. Hall is kind enough to help me out. She and her husband watch Robert and don’t ask me for anything.”
Then he said it again, “You are not the same innocent little girl I first met. Now you are hanging in Petersburg and doing things your momma would have a fit about.”
I inhaled, and felt the heat rise over my body. I peered across at him. He was no longer the handsome ball player and the envy of all the girls at school. He was now making annoying comments and I suspected he was also a liar.
I had to dig deep to conjure up the nerve to challenge him. “I don’t care what you say about me. People say you are not who you say you are. And folks have seen you driving around Petersburg with Nadine in the car. Now how does that look?”
He shook his head, and frowned. “They are just making things up. People are always talking.”
“Simon, stop. Don’t lie to me!” I screamed, since he was determined to keep denying the truth.
He turned toward me and stared me in the eyes. His almond eyes appeared dark with worry. “Since when do you listen to the gossip of other people? You know people will make things up. I want you to stop asking me about Nadine or any of the other things stewing up in your head.”
I opened the car door and got out. He got out too and followed me up the stairs to our apartment on the second floor, both of us planting our feet with a strong determination on the steps. We were both agitated.
After we were in the house, I informed him he was sle
eping on the davenport. I went into the bedroom and threw a pillow out to him like he was a dog. The pillow almost hit him in the face, but instead, it tumbled on the floor.
“Girl, you are crazy!” he yelled, bending down to pick up the pillow. I peeked out the door a few minutes later. He was lying on the davenport with his eyes shut tight.
I didn’t open my mouth. I had said enough. We both went to sleep early. Neither of us bothered to eat anything. I tossed and turned all night. He didn’t go back to the club as he’d said he would.
Chapter 15
Hester came over to the house early one Saturday morning. The sun had just begun to ascend into the sky. She’d always been an early riser, so seeing her at that time in the morning was no surprise to me. Country folks got up with the chickens and went to bed with the sun. Simon had gotten up early too, washed, made a pot of strong coffee, dressed and was out the door before 7:30 a.m. He said he was headed to the club because he had business to take care of. The club didn’t open before noon. Folks who stay up at night, often sleep most of the day. It is why Momma called them “all-night ramblers.”
Hester and I decided to spend the entire day together. We started to act like we had in secondary school. We sat down at the kitchen table beside each other and discussed the men in our lives.
We started off with my brother, John, who had been dating Hester. John had been spending more time around Ms. Pearl, a woman too old for him. He claimed to be handling some legal things for her, coming down from Washington, D.C. to settle some of her business, or so Hester had said. “Ever since he helped her get out of jail, he has felt as if he was her adviser or something,” I said.
“Ms. Pearl doesn’t need John. He is like all the rest of the men around; they fall for her. They like the glamour and just being in her presence.”
“She is too old for him, and besides, I think you are making too much of it,” I told her. My brother felt he could save the world. He had always been softhearted for the derelicts and unfortunate. It seemed to work for everyone except me.
“I am just not going to stand back and let Ms. Pearl steal my man. She already has her share and more. It is the reason most of the women around can’t stand her.”
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