Sugar

by Bernice McFadden

  Shirley stood up and her knees creaked loudly. “Can you believe this?” she said, her hand extended out toward the window. Her mouth kept opening and closing in disbelief and sweat trickled down from around her temples. A sweet, sickening musty smell rose up from her body that was nearly as suffocating as her overpowering personality. Pearl stepped back, trying to escape it and Shirley.

  “I gotta go . . . this ain’t right and she ain’t right, Pearl. You gotta husband, Pearl.”

  There is silence and Shirley need not say any more; her words carried heavy meaning. “That’s all I’m gonna say on it.”

  She left, leaving peanut shells still on the plate, stepping over shattered pieces of china. The news would spread quick and fast now. Pearl considered pulling the phone from the wall.

  Chapter Six

  THE morning came in raw. Smelling like a sea that was nowhere near Bigelow or Arkansas. The wind was blowing wrong, causing a backdraft to come off of the canning plant. It was mackerels then. It seemed every year the plant was canning something new. This year it’s mackerels, and from time to time the smell of discarded fish parts traveled the few miles and settled thick as smoke in and around the towns that bordered Ashton. It didn’t remind nobody of the sea. That smell reminded people of an unwashed woman.

  That’s all Pearl needed after what she saw yesterday. The smell of an unclean woman traveling around her nose and seeping in the cushions of her couch. Unwelcomed. That’s what it was. The smell and the woman across the way.

  Pearl was up early and was moving about the house doing nothing really, just waiting for the sun to come up full in the sky and then her job as wife would begin. The house was quiet except for the soft padding of her slippered feet against the wood and the linoleum-lined kitchen. There was the even breathing of her sleeping husband permeating the background. The kettle was on the stove and the water jumped and bubbled against the heat inside the tin structure. Pearl looked into her cabinet, and there were five teacups now instead of six. She reached for one and her feet carried her to the window. She hadn’t meant to go there. Not right then. Not so soon in the morning. But she was there tugging once, twice and then the shade gave in suddenly and snapped up and out of her hand. Pearl jumped and dropped her teacup. There are four teacups now.

  What she saw surprised her. Surprised him. The two of them; him on the outside passing between the houses, leaving his size twelve shoeprint in the wet earth, green jacket hanging over one arm and shirt half undone, revealing dark tight curls of hair on his chest. He glowed pale beneath the approaching dawn. He was smiling, thinking about what had just been done to him, over and over again. But the smile was frozen and unnatural when Pearl saw it. The crash of Pearl’s teacup got him moving again, unfroze the stupid contented smile on his face. He stared hard at her, nodded his head and mouthed “Mornin’.”

  Pearl nodded back and pulled her thin, yellow robe around her. Looking into his eyes chilled her. A scream scrambled to the base of her throat. She threw her hand over her mouth and gagged instead.

  She was at the front door before he rounded the front of the house, and she couldn’t stop herself from grabbing hold of the cold metal doorknob and swinging the heavy door wide open. She stepped out on the porch and caught sight of him as he stepped into the green and white 1955 Bel Air Sports Coupe. Had Joe been witness to this, he would have whistled long and loud at the automobile. It was fine and slick.

  The engine revved up just as the sky began to pale and then it was shooting past Pearl. She watched until the car blurred and then disappeared.

  Something just wasn’t right about a white man on Grove Street, in a fancy car, leaving a black woman’s house in the early morning hours. Something just wasn’t right. It was as foul as the raw air that was picking up potential with the morning sun.

  There was too much activity on the normally quiet Grove Street. Cars were coming and going, filled with men, a few with women—two, three, four times—up and down the street, people hanging out the windows and pointing at #10 Grove Street, wanting to catch a glimpse of the naked woman.

  Joe nodded and waved at the people as they went by. Happy to see them at first and then confused as to why they were there at all, driving past his house over and over again. He waved one man over. “What ya’ll doing?” he asked, scratching his head in bewilderment. He asked his question and then looked up at a truck filled with watermelon pulling up on the opposite side of the road. Customers were already lining up.

  “You don’t know?” the man said with a laugh.

  “Nope,” Joe replied and looked back at his wife, who had followed him out on the porch.

  “Ya new neighbor like to walk ’round outside her house . . . naked.” The man’s voice thickened a bit when he said it. Joe recognized that sound and backed away from it.

  “Is that right?” he said, and folded his arms across his massive chest.

  The man was grinning, not paying Joe much mind now. He thought he saw movement in the front window.

  Joe thanked him for the information and walked back to his porch. “You know anything ’bout all this?” he asked Pearl. Pearl did know about something, but these people couldn’t possibly be here to witness what she had just yesterday. “Something ’bout the woman next door walking around outside naked?” Joe continued, looking at Pearl’s forehead instead of her eyes.

  “They here to see that?” Pearl said flatly. “That ain’t right, Joe. She ain’t no circus freak. And she wasn’t outside, she was in the privacy of her own living room . . . the window just happened to be open, shifting the curtains a bit. Shirley was here when it happened, done blown it up to something it ain’t. These people gotta go, Joe. Our home is here too. They can’t be ’round here like this.” She turned and walked back into the house. Her eyes never left the street when she spoke and her voice never rose.

  Joe hitched his pants and lifted his head a bit higher, gathering his full six feet three inches and 250 pounds. Something was going to be done about this.

  Pearl didn’t know what he said, probably not much, and he only spoke to two people: the watermelon man and someone on a bike, didn’t need to speak to more than that, the others would see and get the hint. The people respected Joe’s words, not sure of what he was physically capable of, and not wanting to push him to test it, they moved along and away from Grove Street.

  She didn’t tell him where she was going, wasn’t necessary. He was asleep on the sofa, the television watching him, a half-empty glass of Coke sitting on the floor, the ice melting loudly within it, a half-eaten bologna sandwich on a plate next to the glass. Sunday afternoon found him snoring in his second favorite snoozing place, after the far side of the middle pew in Bigelow’s First Baptist Church, the part that was hidden by a column.

  She slipped quietly out the back door, pie in hand, and walked across the thick grass that separated her house from Sugar’s. The screen door was open a bit, swinging back and forth on its hinges. “Hello,” Pearl yelled twice before she walked in. She could hear a man’s voice, happy and chipper, coming from the living room. A commercial for soap coming from a radio she couldn’t see. “Hello?” once again and then she was on the stairs moving up to the second floor of the house one step at a time. Step. Listen. Step. Listen. Nothing.

  The house echoed empty, yet she kept going.

  The center hall was bright; dust particles danced in the fat slants of light that came in through the window at the far end. Pearl looked down at her black shoes, spit shined by her husband; they looked more expensive than their five dollars’ worth against the worn, burgundy and gold swirled carpet. She stepped forward and found herself between two rooms, the bedroom and the bathroom. Both doors half open, revealing contents and details. She turned toward the bedroom intending to push the door open, but her attention was focused toward the hall window. She stepped forward and her hand missed the feel of the oak door, as it swung open before she could make contact.

  Sugar stood before her, a to
wel wrapped around her body. A wasted effort, the towel was too small and like the half-open doors, revealed most everything and more than nothing at all.

  “What you doing in my house!” Sugar yelled and stepped forward.

  “I—” Pearl was flustered mute.

  “What you doing in my house?!” Sugar demanded again. Her breath, heavy with cigarettes and pork and beans, invaded Pearl’s nose and she coughed.

  “I—I called out, but no one answered. I just wanted to try again . . . bring another pie for you since—”

  Her speech was cut short. The pie was airborne and spinning above her head. Sugar’s rage had overwhelmed her and triggered her hand to slap at the pie. When it landed, it landed on Pearl’s head. Sweet potato and crust slid down the sides of her face and onto her dress, made a home in her hair and clung to her lashes.

  Pearl didn’t move, not even to wipe at the pie in order to remove it from her head and face. She just stared at Sugar. Sugar was stunned, stunned at her quick act of anger, and her face showed her surprise and growing regret.

  “Sorry” tickled at her tongue but Sugar would not release it, so it moved into her eyes where Pearl interpreted it.

  She laughed at the pie on her head and her stupidity. It was a full-bodied laugh, not at all as rich as a good bottle of wine, but it was a laugh nevertheless, and she had laughed so little in past years. Sugar laughed too, unsure at first and then more securely.

  More than ten minutes passed before they got themselves under control. Sides aching and faces wet with tears, they knelt together to pick from the floor what had missed or left Pearl’s head.

  “Well, Miss Pearl, seems as if I’m never gonna actually get to taste your sweet potato pie,” Sugar said as she scooped pie from the top of Pearl’s head.

  “Sweet potato pie your favorite?” Pearl asked.

  “All-time,” Sugar said.

  “We’ll make the next one together then,” Pearl said, cementing her place in Sugar’s life, using words she had used with Jude years before.

  “I ain’t much of a cook, no less a baker,” Sugar responded.

  “Don’t matter, life’s ’bout learning new things anyway,” Pearl said.

  Chapter Seven

  I DON’T need you!”

  Sugar woke up and the words were spilling from her mouth. Loud and obnoxious. She believed she must have been screaming because the words still bounced off the walls of her bedroom.

  They were bitter words, sour in her mouth where once upon a time they’d been familiar, tasteless things that were just a part of life.

  I don’t need you!

  The words stayed with her, echoing in her mind. She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut, placing her hands over her ears to block the words out completely. That didn’t help at all. They weren’t outside of her, sitting in the chair across the room or even standing over her trying to poke her awake. They were inside her head, living in her soul, and now she was holding them in, trapping them there for good by holding her hands over her ears.

  What had it been? A dream maybe, certainly not a memory of something that had actually happened. She’d never had to use those words in her real life. She never had to make a statement to anyone with regard to what she needed and didn’t. No, she had been self-sufficient for most of her life—not counting time spent with the Laceys and Mary.

  There had been no love to scrape away at her, leaving only crumbled bits of flesh where there once was a whole person—she didn’t have to pretend that she didn’t need him when she knew she did. No, that was someone else’s life.

  Mother, maybe? No, she had never had one to rebel against.

  Hmmm, strange.

  Perhaps it was Pearl. She was quickly becoming a part of Sugar’s life. It had started slow. The baking of the pie was the maiden voyage to their friendship, and then other things. Tending the garden that they both thought was dead. Turned out that it was just dormant. “What it needed was a little love and attention,” Pearl said when the first pink blossom flowered. Sugar wasn’t sure if she was speaking about the garden or something else. She wasn’t good at reading people without having looked into their eyes. Pearl never held hers still enough to allow that. They were always shifting here and there. Darting around like a fly, resting only for short periods, and then on the move again.

  Joe was nice too, she felt an instant respect for him. Something she had never had for men. Something about his posture and slow, careful talk.

  They went to town together. What a pair. Pearl always in one of her starched cotton dresses with the small, white, delicately embroidered collar and Sugar in a glaring, red, hot pink or orange dress that sat dangerously above the knee, revealing a hefty portion of thigh that was accentuated with spiked high-heeled shoes. Red, black or blond wigs stretching down her back and bouncing happily up and down on the rise of her backside. She smiled at no one when she turned her heavily powdered, blue eyelidded, crimson lipsticked face on them.

  “Why do you hide yourself under all of that . . . makeup?” Pearl often asked. Sugar never answered, just snorted air out her nose, sucked her teeth or lit a cigarette.

  People stared blatantly. Not caring if the two women saw. They approached them from behind, making their presence known with loud, stringent greetings that were directed at Pearl. Small tiny words passed between them, dainty chitchat that was weighed down with spitefulness. They ignored Sugar, pretended that she was nothing more than air. Foul air. With noses held high and eyes boring in on Pearl, they really wanted to ask what would drive her to associate with trash?

  Pearl would entertain them in conversation, uneasily, always aware of Sugar standing nearby. She tried once or twice to include her in the conversation, but the women as well as Sugar always seemed to walk away just as Pearl’s words of introduction began to verge upon them.

  “Don’t you want to meet people?” Pearl, exasperated, would ask Sugar.

  To the women, Pearl would say: “She’s really very nice.” The women didn’t want to hear any more. They’d been hearing talk, seeing things that didn’t sit right with them, things that should not be going on in Bigelow. Things that hadn’t started happening until Sugar’s arrival.

  The men, however, were more accommodating, friendly even. They always spoke, went out of their way to do so. Came toward Sugar and Pearl with large, all-consuming grins. They tripped over themselves to get to Sugar—tipping their hats as they came, greetings rolling from their half-open mouths and a sparkle of desire in their eyes.

  Very interesting.

  Pearl wanted to ask Sugar where her money came from. She seemed to be available at any hour of the day. Most times. Maybe, Pearl contemplated, she was a wealthy heiress hiding out among simple folk for a spell or maybe she was a criminal doing the same.

  A lot was absent from their conversations despite the friendship that was growing between them. Some things can’t be broached so soon. Some things must be left unsaid for a while. Two months is not long enough to peel back the skin and reveal the truths that hide beneath it.

  Sugar saw the curiosity in Pearl’s eyes. It was growing more and more every day. Expanding, lengthening and maturing. Sugar was trying to avoid it. She did not want to reveal her life before Bigelow and she convinced herself that she wouldn’t, no matter what. But something inside of her was weakening and she found the words of her life sitting on the tip of her tongue when she was close to Pearl and their hands brushed when planting or mixing dough for bread. Those words almost spilled out and she had to swallow quickly to keep them inside of her.

  “Tell me ’bout up North. That’s where you were before here, right?” Pearl asked one day as they sat at the kitchen table separating field peas. The morning was wet and by afternoon an uncomfortable gray heat had settled in Bigelow, pulling buckets of sweat from foreheads and underarms, sending the mosquitoes on a feeding frenzy. Sugar’s hand slowed when the question was asked. “Oh, tell me about St. Louis. One of my childhood friends moved there,” P
earl continued. Sugar rolled one lone, brown pea beneath her index finger and then she raised her eyes to meet the top of Pearl’s head.

  “Well?” Pearl said without raising her head. Her eyes remained focused on her chore. Her fingers moved quickly as she pushed the good peas to the left of the pile and the bad, bruised, discolored peas to the right.

  “Ain’t nothing much to say.” Sugar’s mouth moved to say more, but only breath came out.

  “Nothing?” Pearl’s head rose and her hand movements stopped. “C’mon, got to be something. What you do when you was up there?” Pearl’s tone was light on top but there was a pull beneath the words that would surely suck Sugar in if she did not step carefully.

  “I—I worked for a woman,” Sugar said in a low voice.

  “That true, doing what?” Pearl pushed. She leaned in.

  “What?” Sugar asked stupidly, already tripping over the lie she was laying down.

  “Yeah, what kinda work did you do for the woman?” Pearl’s voice probed.

  “I, uh . . . well she ran a house for uh . . .” Sugar was searching for the wrong words, the words that wouldn’t tell the whole truth. The right words, the true ones, dangled before her and she had to shift her eyes and close her mouth lest they jump in and spill out.

  “Well?” Pearl pushed again.

  Sugar scratched at the heat rising around her neck. “She ran a house for—for women. I—I cleaned up around the place.” The words were out as quick as Sugar was up and out of her chair. Pearl’s eyes widened, but she said nothing else. She went back to pushing her peas. She let Sugar be, for now.

  Sugar swallowed but it became harder to digest the truth about her time in St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit. She did not want to reveal her fifteenth year, the year she walked away from Short Junction. Small town ain’t fit for a woman that ain’t never had a mamma. It ain’t fit for a woman that never had any friends. It ain’t fit for a woman that dreamed beyond the confines and goings-on of the green and white Lacey home.