Sugar

by Bernice McFadden

  Pearl got up and went to the full-length mirror that stood in the corner of her room. She stood before it and looked at herself, the new her. She fingered her hair, soft, silky and black. She touched her face, ran her fingers over the face that was absent of wrinkles. Her eyes held her age, not the skin on her face. Slowly, methodically, without being totally conscious of her movements, she began to disrobe. She slipped her dress over her head. The slip followed, as did the brassiere and stockings and panties. She stood before herself, her naked self, and began to re-familiarize herself with her body.

  The once flat stomach was rounded and protruded forward; it was scarred with motherhood marks three times over. If she could, she would not even sell those long, black marks that crisscrossed her abdomen, no, they made up who she was—a mother.

  The breasts that once sat high and curved now sloped, but did not sag. Her hips were thicker, rounder, and so were her legs. She turned to examine her behind. It was large, expanded by time and good eating. All in all, Pearl did not have a body unworthy of wanting. She released the French roll and let her hair cascade down onto her shoulders. Wild, black waves of hair. She giggled to herself and hurriedly covered her mouth with her hands.

  The night was dawning dark blue as the full moon took its place high above Bigelow, giving light to dark back roads and lost souls. A breeze kicked up, late-night September air that prepared you for October and beyond moved through the open window, provoking the curtains into shrill and frenzied movements. Without thinking, Pearl moved to close the window, and in doing so, exposed herself to the night. She stopped, but did not draw back. The night air moved seductively across her naked body. It was tantalizing and invigorating. Slowly, the night caressed her, transforming her nipples into resistant pebbles and teasing the small, pointed, pink flesh between her legs. Pearl parted the curtains and leaned the top part of her body out of the window, allowing her breasts to sway slowly in the night air. The night welcomed her nakedness. It felt so good, so right, so free. Suddenly, she understood.

  This sudden empathy she felt for Sugar sent her reeling back from the open window. She snatched her clothes up from the floor and wrapped them, best she could, around her nakedness. What was she if she was able to take part in, understand and even enjoy an act that was clearly amoral? Had her acceptance of Sugar made her susceptible to her low-down traits? Was being a whore like having a flu—could you catch it like the diseases that hid and floated invisible in the air?

  A shaken, unsure laugh bounced off the walls. “I’m being so stupid,” Pearl said aloud and dropped her clothes back down to the floor. She started toward the closet door to retrieve her gown from the hook it hung on during the day. As she went, she caught, once again, the naked sight of herself in the mirror and something in her smiled.

  “What you gone and done?” Sugar stood before Pearl, dressed in a dress so tight, it was as if her body was smeared with red paint and dusted with white gardenias. The tops of her breasts sat recklessly at the edge of the low curved neckline and jiggled like currant jelly with each draw of breath she took. “Why ain’t you dressed, and why is your hair all undone?”

  “ ’Cause it’s bedtime, that’s why,” Pearl said solemnly and looked back at the open Bible in her lap. Sugar shifted her feet and swung her tiny red handbag onto the bed.

  “It ain’t, either, Miss Pearl. You ain’t gonna sleep on my hard work and time. We going out to show you off. I don’t give a shit what you say!” She grabbed Pearl by the shoulders and pulled her into a standing position.

  Pearl raised tired eyes to Sugar’s face. A glint of newfound knowledge lingered in her dark eyes. Sugar recognized it, she’d seen it in her own eyes some time ago. She walked over to Pearl’s closet and began rummaging through the frugal, dreary-colored dresses that hung there. Dress after dress she pulled from the closet, examined and then tossed to the bed. “Ain’t you got nothing a little spicy?” Sugar asked in frustration.

  Pearl was sitting again, flipping through her Bible. Every once in a while she would throw a look over her shoulder to see Sugar’s progress. Her mouth was tired of saying no, she could not remember having to use the word so often in her whole life, except of course when she was raising her children.

  “I guess this will have to do.” Sugar held out a long pale pink dress. It was sleeveless, and had a large white collared neckline that came together as a huge bow in the front. The bottom was a million tiny pleats. Pearl turned to see what Sugar had found mildly approving. It was a dress her son Seth had given her for her birthday. It was a beautiful dress, but Pearl never wore it. She always imagined a younger woman wrapped in its silky cloth, but she could not bring herself to part with it, and so it hung at the back of the closet waiting for Pearl to remove it, admire its print and the sweeping sound of its material, only to place it back in the closet until she was moved to do it again.

  “I ain’t wearing that,” Pearl said. She saw Sugar smile a little. “And I ain’t going,” she quickly injected and shook her finger at Sugar.

  “I said you are.”

  “Ain’t.”

  “Are too!”

  “Ain’t.” Pearl was unmovable.

  “Okay, Miss Pearl, what can I say or do that will convince you to go?”

  “Nothing.”

  Sugar looked down at the old woman. Pearl’s lips moved silently as she read her Bible. Sugar sighed and began surveying the room again. A small cross sat on the wall over the bed, and another, fashioned out of palm leaves, rested atop a jar of Vaseline on the dresser. Sugar suddenly realized how she could persuade her.

  “If you go . . . I’ll come to church with you.”

  Pearl’s lips stopped moving and she raised her eyes to meet Sugar’s.

  “You can have me for a month of Sundays,” Sugar continued. She was grieving inside. Church wasn’t the place she wanted to spend her free time, but she knew that was probably the only way Pearl would agree to go. What she didn’t know, was why it was so important to her that Pearl actually went.

  Pearl closed her Bible and considered Sugar’s offer. Sugar craved a cigarette, but instead bit her thumbnail in anticipation.

  “Two months of Sundays,” Pearl said, holding up a pair of fingers.

  Sugar bit her lip, and then in surrender she said, “Okay, two months.”

  The dress hugged Pearl’s hips a little too snugly, and embraced her bosom like an old familiar friend. She kept tugging at the material, hoping that she could stretch it loose.

  “Stop it,” Sugar said and slapped Pearl’s hands away from the material. “You look just fine.” She was applying a light dusting of baby powder to Pearl’s face.

  “That lipstick is too bright,” Pearl said and shrunk back as Sugar tried to apply the flaming red lipstick to Pearl’s lips.

  “It ain’t. That stuff you got there is too boring and too damn old,” Sugar said, referring to the fifty-cent, doughy pink lipstick Pearl had tried to give to her. It was old, and was already in the beginning stages of decay.

  “I ain’t putting that loud color on my lips.” Pearl turned her lips inside her mouth and folded her arms across her chest like a stubborn child.

  “Okay, okay. Have it your way, then,” Sugar said and threw the lipstick back in her bag.

  Pearl looked like a doll. Her hair was back in the French roll, her eyelids lightly dusted with blue shadow. The color wasn’t completely flattering to Pearl’s skin color, or Sugar’s for that fact, it was just a wild ocean that raged on your face and called attention to your eyes. Pearl put on her Sunday fake pearls, but Sugar made her take them off.

  “You ain’t going to church, Miss Pearl.”

  Pearl kept examining herself in the mirror, still unsure that it was her that looked back at her.

  “So where are we going and how are we getting there?” Pearl asked. She was beginning to sweat and would need to move out to the front porch soon to try and catch a breeze.

  “I gotta friend coming by to get us,” Sugar
said as they walked down the stairs.

  “What kinda friend?” Pearl asked suspiciously.

  “The kind that drives a brand new car and pays for everything,” Sugar said, finally giving in to her craving and pulling her pack of cigarettes from her bag. They were on the front porch now, Sugar leaning over the railing and peering down the dark road. Pearl went into her own pocketbook, a hard black leather bag that she’d had for years, and pulled out a stick of Doublemint. “Umph,” she said to Sugar’s back as she popped the stick of gum in her mouth. She pulled at her dress again, and wiped at the blush on her cheeks.

  “Will you stop that,” Sugar screeched.

  “Maybe this ain’t a good idea.” Pearl was having second thoughts. The night air had cleared her mind. She finally realized the extent of her commitment and the approaching headlights made her mindful of the possible consequences involved.

  “Oh, Miss Pearl, you only gotta worry about one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Pearl said, concern in her voice.

  “You just gotta remember you is a married woman and tell all them men that’s gonna be sniffin’ around you that you already got a man!” Sugar laughed out loud, her laughter competing with the approaching car’s motor. “Here he is.”

  Sugar walked slowly down the stairs, her body swaying in time with Pearl’s quickening heartbeat. Pearl could see that with every step, Sugar was transforming into the Sugar that worked the night, the Sugar that appeared in the dreams of men and whose name, usually during heightened passion, suddenly rested on the tips of their tongues.

  “C’mon, Miss Pearl.” After a brief exchange with the man behind the wheel, Sugar called to her. Pearl looked up and down the dark street and half walked, half ran to the car, hoping to get safely inside before she was spotted.

  The driver’s door opened and out stepped a white man. Well, what Pearl thought was a white man. The same white man she saw passing between their houses that early morning not so long ago. She took in too much air and began coughing.

  “You okay, Miss Pearl?” Sugar was next to her now, patting hard on her back.

  Pearl blinked the tears away and looked again at the man before her.

  “This here is Lappy. Lappy Clayton. Lappy, this here is Miss Pearl Taylor.”

  Lappy smiled and his gold tooth sparkled under the moonlight. He took Pearl’s hand, bent his head and tried to kiss it, but before his lips could brush against her hand, she snatched it away. Terror, then confusion, glistened in her eyes.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, mildly annoyed at her reaction.

  “Same here,” Pearl muttered and looked down at the ground. What she’d seen in his face, or thought she’d seen, would not allow her to look directly at him.

  “Well, ya’ll ready to have a good time?” he said as he opened the driver’s side door, pushed his seat forward and stood back so Pearl could climb in. She hesitated, but Sugar was already in, beckoning her to hurry.

  Pearl sat quietly in the backseat trying to avoid looking at the sneaky eyes that watched her in the rearview mirror. She shifted her body, said the Lord’s Prayer and looked out into the darkness.

  Forty minutes later they came to a stop. Pearl was shaking; she looked out the window and saw a large wooden shack that was supported on slate-colored mason stones. Christmas lights—red and green—were hung around the doorway and carelessly from the sloping roof. It stood in the center of a wide open field. Large trees bordered the land and Pearl could hear the sound of water moving restlessly behind it.

  The shack vibrated and shook under the weight of five dozen stamping feet, as the people kept time with the soprano and the piano that wailed away inside.

  “It’s okay, Miss Pearl,” Sugar assured her for the hundredth time that night as they stepped over the threshold and into the smoky abyss called the Memphis Roll.

  They sat down at a tiny round table that was covered with a purple-and-black-checked tablecloth. One lone candle sat in its center, the flame threatening to give in to the night wind that slipped in through the aging rafters.

  Pearl kept her head bowed. She felt nothing but pure shame for being there; it pulsed through her body, contaminating her arteries, threatening to extinguish the remnants of her moral character.

  “Drink?” Lappy was leaning over her, the candlelight illuminating his gold tooth. Pearl could smell his cologne and the stink of his breath. “Uh, no—no thank you.” She responded without raising her eyes to meet his.

  “Bring her a beer, and you know what I like,” Sugar said as she lit a cigarette.

  Pearl looked at her over the dancing flame. Sugar avoided her and turned her attention to the large mass of people swirling around them. Too much skin and loud let-go laughter clothed in hot tangerines, blood reds and hot pinks made up the women. Quiet, slanted-eyed Negroes that moved like serpents through the crowd and sported slick suits made up the men.

  Lappy, dressed in a saffron-colored suit, pushed through the crowd, making his way toward the bar, stopping every few feet to shake an outstretched hand, slap a back or pinch a curved tight ass. Pearl watched him disappear into the crowd and wished that it would swallow and digest him, finally discharging him as the shit she knew he was. She tried to convince herself that Joe’s leaving and the heat of the day were to blame for the departure she’d obviously taken from her senses. But now, she felt something else had a hand in things. It would have to be the case—either there was a greater force at work, or she was going mad, because what she saw, or what she thought she saw when Lappy took her hand in front of her house, was unsteadying enough to make her want to have the drink that Sugar had requested he bring back for her.

  Men circled the table like vultures; their eyes caressed Sugar’s body, their hands took brief liberties on her knee. They knelt down beside her and spoke into her bosom, or had a conversation with her leg. Her face and who she was were of no concern to them, and they made no attempt to pretend that it was.

  Upon Lappy’s return, the men scattered. He set a bottle of beer in front of Pearl and a glass of whiskey before Sugar and took his seat.

  “This your first time, Miss Pearl?” Lappy asked. He spoke to her in a loud, slack voice usually reserved for friends.

  “Yes,” Pearl said. She did not want to talk to this man and absolutely did not want to look at him again, especially his hands—those pale long things, adorned with gold and glass. No, to look at his hands again would send her screaming from the Memphis Roll and down the dark road that brought them there. Because when she looked at his hands, she saw fresh, dripping blood.

  “Thank you all for being here at the Memphis Roll. For all of you who ain’t never been here before, welcome. And for the rest of you—ain’t you got noplace else to be?”

  The short, dark, round-faced man had a booming voice; it rolled like thunder over the lofty levels of laughter and conversation. People waved their hands at him in amusement and begged him to bring on the band. He told a few more jokes, none that even brought a wisp of a smile to Pearl’s face.

  A group of men entered through a side door and took their place on the small makeshift stage that was directly in front of Sugar and Pearl’s table. A piano, guitar and drum set awaited them. The shack was quiet, except for the sound of people ordering drinks and chicken frying in a room behind the bar area. The band struck up and played tune after tune that ignited the shack, causing men and women to grab at each other and then send each other in wide, wild circles. They separated and came together again in a slow steady grind.

  The temperature rose as the music became more feverish. The band members were soaked with sweat, but did not seem to tire beneath the music they put forth. The floor was alive beneath Pearl’s feet and more than once she caught herself bopping her head or tapping her feet to the music, before she quickly composed herself.

  Sugar yelled obscene praises to the band while slapping her thighs and keeping time with their frantic harmony. “Ya’ll is too damn hot tonight!”
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br />   The music had hold of the people, compelling them to dig deeper into the rent, bill or mortgage money they foolishly carried with them. “Shiiiit! Pour me another!” reverberated throughout the shack as people slammed dollar after hard-labored dollar on the bar, pushing further and further back the consequences of their pleasure. Eviction, screaming wives, hostile husbands and hungry babies. They would deal with that when the sun fulfilled the promise of another day. For now there were good times to be had, and good times cost.

  The band took a break, and people retired breathlessly to their tables, dark corners and the comfort and support of a wall.

  “Ain’t they hot, Miss Pearl?” Sugar’s voice was filled with excitement and she continued to snap her fingers to the memory of the music that lingered in her mind. Pearl nodded in agreement. During the chaos, Lappy had disappeared. Pearl searched the crowd and spotted him pushed up against another woman. Pearl looked quickly away. Her watch told her it was almost three a.m.

  “You think we could get going?” she said above the noise.

  Sugar couldn’t answer, the round-faced man was back.

  “Right about now we gonna have our girl belt out a couple of tunes for you.” His eyes fell on Sugar. Pearl blinked, and was sure she misunderstood his meaning.

  “C’mon people, and give the lovely Miss Sugar Lacey a nice Memphis Roll welcome!”

  Hands came together at a quick and deafening rate. Sugar turned, faced the crowd and did a little curtsey. Pearl’s mouth dropped wide open.

  Three songs later the crowd begged for more. The fifth and final song brought down the house and Sugar had to fight her way off the stage. “Let’s go,” she said and grabbed at the hand of a dumbfounded Pearl. “Miss Pearl, you better close your mouth, you likely to catch something other than flies in here.”