Sugar

by Bernice McFadden

  Sugar sat through the movie, barely conscious of what was going on in front of her. Seth’s arm was wrapped around her, his hand softly, rhythmically stroking her shoulder. He gently guided her head to rest in the curve of his neck. Her heartbeat eventually slowed and her breathing evened, as she allowed her mind and body to become comfortable with his affection and tenderness. Seth’s actions felt as foreign to her as another country. Afterward, when the movie was over and they filed out, blending amidst other black couples, he found her hand and held it tightly in his own. She could think of nothing else as they sped along the dark country roads, the moon lighting their way, Nat King Cole serenading them from the car radio. She wanted nothing more than to have him near her again, she wanted to return to the safe darkness of the movie theater, the drifting scents of buttered popcorn and the soft space between Seth’s jawline and shoulder. And as if reading her thoughts, he pulled her to him once again.

  Neither of them wanted the evening to end so they found themselves in the sultry, sexy darkness of the Memphis Roll, hungry for passion but settling for two fried chicken plates and Cokes. She introduced him to some people, glad that he’d been absent from Arkansas and Bigelow long enough not to be familiar with more than two faces. Thankfully, two faces that she’d never known in the darkness of her bedroom. She took the stage to sing and although the Roll was filled to capacity, her songs were for Seth alone.

  When the sun rose up to kiss the sky, Seth Taylor’s own lips were brushing gently against Sugar’s forehead. They said good-night, even though morning was in full bloom, and went reluctantly smiling to their separate beds, holding themselves tightly until sleep slipped in and took them to the land of dreams.

  Now they were seated close to the lake’s edge, wanting so much to look directly at each other, to touch, but satisfied for now with the reflections that bounced off the deep blue belly of the lake.

  “This lake mean a lot to me.” Seth was speaking again. His tone was muddled, and made it more difficult for Sugar to decipher what he was feeling. She listened intently. “As a child I came here to play and then to mourn my sister’s death. As a man, I loved here, asked Viola to be my wife and when it was over, I came here and tossed my wedding band into the water. I’ve come here to think things out, to be alone and to pray.”

  Sugar knew he was talking around what he really wanted to say. She knew that he was searching for the right words to express his real thoughts. If only she could look into his eyes, then she would know the truth. “What I’m saying is, this been the place where I make all my life’s decisions, right here in this spot.” He jabbed the ground with the piece of wood he’d been fiddling with. “Sugar, I ain’t felt this way about a woman for a long time. I—I mean, you make me feel special and warm all over, you know?”

  She did know, she was experiencing the same feelings. “I can’t explain it. I feel like somebody done cast a spell on me or something.” He laughed nervously. “What I means to say is, I’m heading back North the day after tomorrow and for the first time I don’t wanna go, but I knows I gotta go, and what I wanna know is, well, will you come with me?” He said the last few words fast. His voice cracked like a pubescent boy, his hands shook.

  Sugar’s face was hurting. It was as if something was pulling the skin around her mouth in two different directions. It took a moment before she realized the wincing pain was from the wide smile that stretched across her face. Her heart exploded with joy and her soul sang hallelujah, but her mind dwelled on the truth of her life and she questioned her emotions.

  His question shocked her mute, and she could not find her voice to answer, and if she could, she would have asked: Why me? Because happiness like this was not usually reserved for people like her and she knew it.

  He read her face wrong, and assumed her smile meant yes. He embraced her and held her in his arms until she herself felt that yes could be the only right answer. She was going to take Pearl’s advice, and stop looking behind her and set her eyesight straight ahead.

  He kissed her, gently, timidly, on the lips. Unsure if he should, but unable to stop himself from doing so. His fingers found her scar and moved lovingly over it. She waited for him to ask about its origin, but he didn’t. His hands slid down her back and branched off and up her sides, brushing innocently against the curve of her breasts, and then he pulled away suddenly, clearing his throat and averting his eyes. She felt it too, the fire and desire. For the first time in her life she wanted to give herself over to a man, and not because the rent had to be paid, or her stomach was touching her back, but because she loved him.

  They walked, hand in hand, out of the woods and into the full bright light. The world looked so beautiful that she felt her life ahead couldn’t be anything less than wonderful.

  Chapter Seventeen

  SUGAR’S mind was whirling as she moved quickly through the house, gathering what few things she owned and shoving them into her worn suitcase. They’d decided that they would tell Joe and Pearl tomorrow, the day before he was leaving—they were leaving.

  Lunch was tough. Seth and Sugar were bursting with their secret and they couldn’t help but grin stupidly every time their eyes met across the table. “What in the world is wrong with you two?” Pearl had inquired more than once. Joe just looked up from his cold chicken sandwich and shrugged.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong, Mamma, everything is all right,” Seth answered, his mouth half full of food.

  Pearl turned her eyes on Sugar. “Ya’ll acting silly. Like a bunch of schoolchildren!”

  “Leave it be, Bit,” Joe said and winked at her. Pearl shrugged her shoulders in defeat. She changed the subject. “Ya’ll going out tonight?”

  “Yes ma’am, gonna go down to the Rib Shack and hang out down there for a while with them boys. Say my good-byes and all,” Seth said and reached for the pitcher of lemonade.

  A ghost of sadness crossed over Pearl’s face. She didn’t want her boy to go.

  “Can’t you stay a day longer?” she pleaded. “One more day, Seth.”

  “Mamma, I done stayed too long already. You want me to lose my job? I got’s things to do, Mamma.” Seth was smiling, trying to keep the mood jovial. “ ’Sides, I’ll be back before you know it!”

  “Ask him not to go, Sugar,” Pearl was demanding her.

  “Go’on, maybe he’ll listen to you.” She folded her arms stubbornly across her bosom.

  Sugar shot Seth a look—she wanted to tell Pearl and Joe about their plans. It wasn’t fair keeping their decision a secret; Pearl was gonna suffer all the more when she found out Sugar was going to be leaving with Seth. He shook his head no and looked at his father for help.

  “Bit, c’mon now. The boy said he got’s to get back to work. Do you want him to lose his job?” Joe intervened.

  “He could always come back home to Bigelow, plenty of jobs ’round here.”

  “Like what? Working canning fish or cutting the white folks’ lawns? He don’t want that. He want better than that,” Joe said and returned to his food.

  His words made Sugar uneasy. “He want better than that.” Was she part of the better he wanted? She quickly pushed the thought from her mind. Of course she was.

  She helped Pearl wash and dry the dishes. Her mind was wrapped around so many things that she was getting a headache. She didn’t have much to say and Pearl, overwhelmed with her own concerns about Seth’s imminent departure, didn’t notice.

  “I’ll be by to get you about nine.” He was standing close, his hands enclosing hers, both of their hearts beating wildly. They wanted each other, but resisted. Sugar supposed that’s what was called keeping it pure. He kissed her eyelids and the lobe of her ear then walked slowly home, looking back twice to make sure she was real and his.

  The clothes she would take were packed. The others, the reminders of who she used to be, would be burned. She opened the small drawer to the nightstand by her bed, she didn’t know why, and found herself looking at the small Bible Pearl had given he
r, a rosary and a wilted pack of Luckys. She stared at these things for a long moment until she finally picked up the Bible and opened it to the place that held her mother’s picture. It had been a while since she looked at it and now she sat down and stared at the woman who’d given her life, as if it was the first time she was seeing her.

  “I gotta man, Mamma. He say I make him feel happy. I’m gonna keep making him happy, Mamma. And maybe we’ll get married and have us some babies.”

  The thought of having babies tickled her. She’d never imagined herself as a mother. But then she’d never imagined herself more than a whore.

  “I ain’t never gonna leave my babies, Mamma,” she added and placed the picture safely back between the Bible pages.

  She placed the Bible and the rosary on top of her clothes and closed the suitcase.

  She slipped twice running for the phone. Dripping wet, she left soggy footprints across the floor. “Hello?” she answered breathlessly, hoping it was Seth.

  “Hey, baby!” The voice was low, haunting.

  “Seth?” she said and pulled the towel around her.

  “Naw, girl . . . it’s your tootsie roll, your nigga . . . Lappy!”

  Sugar stood stark still. She hadn’t heard from him since he cornered her at the Memphis Roll more than a month ago.

  “Yeah?” Her voice was granite.

  “Baby, where you been? I been calling you but you ain’t never home. I even drove by there the other night, knocked on your door, nothing. Started to go over to that old woman and ask her if you were still living, but it was late. You know I respect the elderly.” He laughed a twisted laugh that caused the hair to stand up on Sugar’s neck. “I got to bust a nut, girl. I been saving it just for you. Got a little weed, a little whiskey. What you say to that!”

  The shaking started in her knees and rose quickly, until it was in her stomach churning like sour milk. She sat down and covered her mouth, trying to resist the urge to puke.

  “Sugar?” His voice was like poison.

  “No,” she managed to say.

  “No? C’mon, girl. You know uh, me and this cat named Lou figure maybe you can take us both. You know what I mean?”

  “No!” She was screaming. “No! No! No!”

  There was silence. Sugar thought the line was dead and then his voice came again like a coiled cobra poising to strike.

  “You listen here, bitch, I’m the one who got you most of your customers. If it wasn’t for me you would be blowing farm boys for fifty cents a pop. I’m the one that got you hooked up at the Roll! So don’t you go telling me no. Because I don’t much like that word. And people that done used it on me, ain’t walking around to tell about it and neither are their old lady friends. You get what I’m saying?

  “Now we both businesspeople, I ain’t trying to come and get my goodies off for free. Naw, I’m willing to pay, just like always. Things been good for me and I’d like to share the wealth. Now we willing to pay you one hundred dollars for your time, now you know that’s more than you make in a month. We’ll be over there about ten, so if you ain’t wash your ass, I suggest you do so.”

  Click.

  The dial tone buzzed in her ear. She opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out the pack of Luckys.

  Pearl jumped as the front door slammed shut. “Oh, Lord! Seth is back!” Pearl squealed and scrambled from the bed.

  “Bit, Seth is a grown man. He done been married his own-self, he know what married peoples do.” Joe was laughing as he watched his wife run around the bedroom, her hefty behind jiggling madly as she rushed around picking up her bra and panties and trying anxiously to shove herself into them before her son made it to the top landing of the staircase.

  “Yeah, but it’s the middle of the day!” Pearl giggled in spite of herself and tossed the bra aside, opting to throw her house dress on over her bare breasts. Sex had become a daily routine with them. They found themselves breathlessly wrapped in each other’s arms at least once a day. They had probably had more sex in the past two months then they did in the entire thirty or more years they’d been married. With each union, Pearl became less inhibited with her body and her actions toward Joe. It was wildly passionate, sometimes lasting for what seemed like hours, other times it was short, sweet and terribly satisfying, but right now it was interrupted.

  Pearl rushed from the room and met Seth at the bottom of the stairs, practically slamming into him. “Oh, hello, baby,” she said, her voice too high and sing-songy.

  “Hey, Mamma,” he responded. He noticed that her house dress was buttoned wrong, her hair tussled and her cheeks inflamed. “Where’s Daddy?”

  Pearl’s hands came up to her face, brushing away the wild strands of hair from her eyes. Joe’s scent lingered on her fingertips and caught her off guard. She quickly shoved her hands into the pockets of the dress.

  “Uh, we was taking a . . . well, a nap.”

  “Uh-huh,” Seth said and decided to return to the kitchen. It was obvious what was going on. He hadn’t decided how to feel about his parents taking care of business as much as they did. Since he’d been home he’d heard the late-night groaning. The light tap, tap, tap of their headboard as it made insistent contact with his bedroom wall.

  “You hungry. Want me to make you a sandwich?” Pearl spoke quickly, her movements swift and fluttery like a small bird.

  “Okay, Mamma.” Seth knew she needed to occupy herself.

  They sat across from each other, enjoying the quiet mother and son moment. Pearl reached out and brushed her hand across his face, picking a piece of lint from his thick mass of hair or just rubbing the back of his resting hand. Seth talked a mile a minute; every other word was “Sugar.” Pearl smiled. She knew by the way Sugar’s name always seemed to find a place in his conversation, and how it rolled off his tongue like honey, that the two were smitten.

  “You like her something awful, huh, Seth?”

  “I likes her well enough,” Seth said, still wanting to keep their announcement a secret until tomorrow.

  “You likes her more than well enough,” Pearl said as she removed his plate from the table.

  “Well, to tell the truth, I thinks a man could do real well with a woman like that.” Seth leaned back and rubbed his stomach heartily.

  “Sure could,” Pearl said, watching him sideways. Her heart was hopeful.

  At nine, Sugar heard Seth come up the porch steps and knock softly on the screen door. Everything he did was soft. Like how you’d expect a woman to be. Gentle. She heard him calling her name from beneath her bedroom window, over and over again. But she wouldn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. She just lay there enjoying the sound of her name in his mouth.

  The shame of what she was about to do had taken her voice away, left her mute with remorse. She didn’t know that at the time. Sugar thought she was doing it for Seth. Told herself the money would come in handy, help him to buy that business up in New York, help fulfill his dreams and make a better life for the both of them.

  Then Sugar convinced herself that she was doing it for Pearl. Lappy wasn’t a man to play with and he had told her that if Sugar didn’t oblige him Pearl could be the one to suffer. She didn’t want that.

  But looking back, being open and real with herself, Sugar realized that she did it because of who she was and you can’t change a person overnight or during a week home on holiday. What she was had been hammered into her.

  The woman who Seth fell for, well, that wasn’t Sugar. Not the real Sugar. The one he loved was a lie someone conjured up on the front porch of #10 Grove Street.

  He would have found out sooner or later. Life is just that way, there’s only so much you can do in the dark before it comes to light. If nothing else, Sugar learned that much. Who’s to say his best friend in New York wasn’t a customer of hers in St. Louis?

  But that realization hadn’t come yet. Even as she lay there and listened to Seth calling her name she still knew that she would let Lappy and his friend use her body one last time
, and then she could just disappear. Their money in her pockets, Seth on her arm, the two of them burning up the road to New York, to a new life.

  She heard Seth half walk, half run back to his house and she knew he was going to try and phone her. That phone rang a million times and then stopped and rang a million more times before he ran back and started banging on the door, Pearl and Joe with him this time. Six hands banging on her door. She thought she would go mad. But she lay there, sane as could be, still as the night.

  Lappy Clayton’s car pulled up and Pearl, Joe and Seth stopped calling her name.

  She heard the car door slam, his footsteps as he left the car and approached the house and the breeze as it wrapped around the dogwoods.

  “She ain’t there,” Seth said. He was mad that she ain’t answer him. Mad that he didn’t know if she was dead or alive. Mad that some high faluting, half breed nigger was walking up her front porch.

  “C’mon, Seth. C’mon, now.” Pearl’s voice was scared. Sugar couldn’t see what was happening, but she knew Pearl was pulling at him, coaxing him back over to the house. Last thing she wanted was her baby tussling with the likes of Lappy Clayton.

  “Go on, son,” Joe commanded him.

  “Daddy, I’m trying to tell the man she ain’t there! So he might as well head back to where he come from!”

  Sugar whispered in the darkness: “Please, Seth.”

  Maybe she was talking to God. She didn’t know. All she knew was didn’t nobody step to Lappy Clayton and expect to walk away unmarked.

  Lappy ain’t said a thing. He didn’t even take a moment to snuff at ’em. Didn’t even look Seth over more than once. He just called Sugar’s name out one time, loud and sharp, and there she was opening the door.

  Seth’s face changed instantly and his lips moved to form the question, why? Sugar didn’t respond. How could she? She knew he was thinking all the wrong things, and whatever his thoughts were, were far better than the actual truth.