Folly (10 page)

Mabel had noticed how Folly spoke first to the white woman, recorded it, but with Folly's apologies, she let go from sitting so tight to another level of concentration in which she could feel her body. She wiped sweat from her forehead. She'd seen Folly pull in tight in response to her, and hoped that didn't mean a wall. She thought her to be a person who saw things the way they were and didn't try to pretend they were different, but she had also learned not to trust that about whites without repeated evidence.

Martha suggested they count the cards and divide them up according to which were Black women and which were white women and see how they stood so far. Long before they got through, they could see that the white women had some hard work to do.

“I guess y'all can't give us lessons on what to say when we go rapping on these doors,” Shirley said.

Mabel wasn't sure how to take Shirley. Was she saying, “Poor us, poor little white girls . . . got no advantage when it comes to being mill workers out on strike.” She would have sprung back into her anger if she had answered the comment, but she heard Emily's cool voice reach out to Shirley. “I guess not. I guess you knows your own people better than anyone else. Only wait. I just got an idea out of what Mabel's been talkin' about.” Emily smoothed her skirt over her crossed knee as she talked. “How 'bout . . . have you thought about maybe some of those white girls don't want to join up because we
are
workin' alongside of each other on this strike, trying to guarantee jobs for all of us, Black and white?”

Mabel looked in the mirror again, caught the smooth darkness of Freena's face, the leveling of Emily's eyes on Shirley. She let out a deep sigh.

12.

Folly woke with a start as if she had been interrupted in the middle of a dream, turned over, and let herself lay in bed for a few minutes, her body stretched out its full length. Voting day. She felt the knot in her stomach. She remembered from her childhood the long days of anticipation waiting for the opening of the county fair, then the morning of waking, the day having finally arrived, the flutter of the butterflies tickling in her gut. This was the day. She had wanted to be well rested for it, and here she was instead—tired, achy tired. She and Martha had stayed up arguing late into the night, and then she hadn't slept well when she'd finally gone to bed.

If having the election over with meant going back to the routine of doing her shift, she wouldn't mind that. And she could surely use the paycheck. In fact, Mary Lou's job had been feeding them the past few weeks and she didn't know what they would have done without it. She felt both let down and relieved by the idea that time was up, she was done with spending her days talking herself and everyone who would listen into supporting the union, talking down fears that she wasn't even sure she shouldn't be holding onto, such as the fear that the union would be one more arm of authority to come in and pinch off another piece of their individual freedom.

The longer she let herself lay there feeling the weight of her bones, the more she understood that Martha had been right about how they were running out of energy reserves. She didn't know how she could have argued against her, but she had. Since the day Mabel had brought up the fact that the white women were lagging behind, it had come
clearer and clearer to her how vulnerable they all were, especially the Black women. She could talk big, they all could, but every single one of them needed her job. No one there worked in the mill for the pleasure of being out of the house. Folly and the other white women had gone after cards from more of their own and gotten commitments from some of them, but Folly felt often as if the white women were still in shallow water. She felt an urgency that the women who were coming over to their side understand what they were doing, the risks they were taking, rather than just allowing themselves to be talked into it.

She had argued with Martha that it was too early still for the election, that they should have held out longer to be sure of having a full majority, which would give them a stronger bargaining unit. That would make them all less vulnerable, less likely to get slapped around by the management.

Truth was, something in her wanted a hundred percent, always had. She knew that was a dream considerably off the road to reality, but she'd been like that about her work since way back. She held a pure crystal somewhere inside herself, turned it, looking at one surface after another, always wanted to come around full circle. She wanted to see Fartblossom hanging from the rafters, upside down, and them one hundred percent enjoying it, no one stepping forward to cut him down. She could hear him already conniving if the union won, how he'd play favorites with the girls who'd voted against it, trying to wedge them further apart.

She wished she hadn't fought with Martha. She didn't know why she had, really, except as Martha had said in the end, “If this ain't a good example of our exhaustion, I don't know what is.” She recognized that wasn't all, but it was a good part of it. Since the walk-out, she hadn't felt that she and Martha had the same quiet sureness of the presence of the other as they'd always had before. Of course, they didn't have their routine, either. They didn't sit sewing for eight hours every night. They hadn't read a mystery the whole time. They'd hardly spent any time with the children. She remembered how they used to flop down on the chairs on the back porch and talk, slow and easy in the sun, while the children came and went.

All through the strike they'd been running around—picketing or standing guard, or going to meetings, talking their heads off to women who were hedging or had come down on the other side. Folly felt as if they'd been fire fighters assigned to a brush fire. Just as everything seemed under control, a spark would ignite here or there, and they'd go, spreading confidence like a blanket to put it out. Seemed like the
election could go the same, a fast sweep flaring up over all Folly's arguments, all she had learned. Next to fear, the greatest problem they had encountered was ignorance about unions. She and Martha, Mabel, Emily, Shirley and a few others had spent time with Jesse, learning about the history of unions: how the labor movement had grown, what the Taft-Hartley Act was for, and how restrictive labor laws had been enacted in states such as North Carolina after that. Folly felt as if she could recite the rules of the National Labor Relations Board backward about the rights of a worker to organize. Her mind contained a blackboard list of “unfair labor practices.” Much of her talking had been to impart this information to other women, but often they refused it. Alice Crowley saying: “You don't have to go into all that with me, Folly. You say so, I believe you. I can go on your word just as well.” But Folly didn't feel right with this response. It was meant to compliment her, but it didn't leave the other woman coming in with the same spirit.

Others used their ignorance as an impenetrable screen for their fears. “Don't tell me nothing,” they said, “I know. Where a union comes in, there's trouble. You're bringin' in outside agitation, what can you expect?” “I been there sewing as many years as you,” Folly was tired of saying. “What's outside about that?” She was tired of trying to pierce heavy armor with words. She knew that they were afraid of taking what power they had and facing down Fartblossom with it. They had all been so well trained in how to negotiate with helplessness, they couldn't imagine actually sitting down with the management as equals. And no wonder. Folly couldn't rightly say she could see it actually happening herself.

She wouldn't want to put money on calling this election. It was enough that all the past weeks were on the line. She thought of her mother and father going out to vote for president, her pa changing out of his farm clothes to do it. She remembered asking them over dinner: “Who'd you vote for?”

Her pa: “Who you askin'?”

“You.”

“Ask your ma.”

She'd turned to her ma, who'd said, “Secret ballot. You're not supposed to tell.”

“Just us. We won't tell. You can tell us.”

“No,” her ma had declared with finality. “Nobody knows. That's what a secret ballot's for.”

It was strange how this came back to her now, so vividly that she could see the pearly gray surface of the table that everyone stared into
when they wanted to look away, and the tight line of their two pairs of lips, firmly closed. She had never been satisfied with their insistence on this silence.

She got out of bed and started dressing. Martha would be ready to go down and vote. She sifted through her drawers looking for something special to wear for this day but ended up settling for comfort—her old, blue, washed-out-a-million-times soft shirt and a pair of jeans. She caught a memory of Martha's face going near despair as she had paced the short space of Folly's living room the night before; Martha looking lonely as she explained how she thought if they tried to drag the strike out any longer, they'd start to lose women who were with them. Folly had felt this loneliness in Martha, almost as if it were her own. She had felt it sometimes when they were visiting Daisy. As everyone else had become more edgy over the strike, Daisy had become more calm. Even her paralyzed limbs that had been so strongly spastic seemed to have released most of their tension. She was awake more but unwilling to fight the weight of gravity that kept her still in the bed. She had talked to Mary Lou a few times, and twice she had talked to Martha, once about the strike.

“Cora. How's Cora?” Daisy had asked, voice scratchy.

“Quiet, pulled into herself,” Martha answered. “She doesn't come down to the line or to the meetings or anything.”

“Don't forget her,” Daisy said. Then she had sighed deeply and her mind had moved away from Martha. Martha had leaned over and tried to get her to say more, and Folly had felt the loneliness of her not being able to get Daisy back.

When the women who had taken the place of the day shift went on mid-morning break, Evelyn rushed to be at the head of the line to the coffee machine. She kept her hands in the pockets of her housedress until it was her turn, then struggled to control them from shaking while she pushed the buttons: coffee with cream and sugar, extra cream, extra sugar. She'd take anything the machine would give. She could use something a little stronger, she thought, but at least the coffee did work to satisfy her craving somewhat. As she went to take the cup out of the small space it had dropped into, she spilled nearly half the coffee. Cursing under her breath, she went to the window, sipped it, and felt for its momentary calming effect. Two weeks since she had last had a drink and still she had the shakes. How long could this go on?

Her nerves were extra taut because the voting was going on. She could see the women pulling into the parking lot in filled cars, piling
out and moving toward the door in groups. Fartblossom strode up and down the loading dock nearest the door, making his existence felt. Evelyn imagined that those women must feel his presence as they entered, much the same as she felt it when he strode up and down the aisles between the machines. Nothing caused her to make a mistake more, even now, when she was getting used to the machine. She knew she wasn't great, but she had improved on her sewing, and if she could keep this job, she thought she could get the skill down to a point where she'd be proud of her work. Behind that was the idea of showing Lenore a reason for respecting her.

Evelyn and the others inside hadn't been told what the vote would mean to them. First, Fartblossom had announced that they would be voting along with the striking women. “You are employed by Victory Mills,” he'd said. “Therefore, when this here union election takes place,
if
it ever does, you'll vote right along with the rest of the employees of Victory Mills and you will vote for NO UNION. You have no need for a union. If you have any problems with the way you are treated here, please speak up to me about them right now.” No one had spoken. They had felt reassured that they were to stay, no matter what. Evelyn had thought she would throw that up to Lenore next time she came by, but Lenore had not been by. Next thing she knew, Fartblossom had announced they wouldn't be voting after all; something about a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board. Only the women who had been employees before the walk-out were eligible to vote, and that was none of them.

Evelyn had finished her coffee and was about to walk away from the window when she thought she saw Lenore's car drive up. Now what on earth would she be doing here, she wondered. The car was shined up so there was no mistaking it. Two women got out of the front seat and two more got out of the back. Lenore stayed in the driver's seat. Evelyn was sure it was her though all she could see was her arm resting out the window, her shoulder sitting just so. Her eyes stayed beamed on that arm, that fraction of her daughter; the rest of her ran confused with why Lenore was there. Then she realized Lenore was serving as a driver, and that this was part of their fight. She gritted her teeth and walked over to the trash can to dump her coffee cup. Someone offered her a downer, and she dug up fifty cents for it out of the bottom of her purse and swallowed it dry on the way to the water fountain.

Martha felt as frustrated as Folly about them not agreeing on the timing for the election, and the two hardly spoke as they drove out to
the factory. She ached to be in tune. At least she and Mabel were synchronized about the election; they saw things moving in steps. Folly wanted everybody ready to jump off the edge of a cliff if need be. What Martha kept coming back to was Daisy, the other time she had talked to her, her eyes coming suddenly from vacancy to full knowledge.

“You two.”

“What do you mean, Ma?”

“Folly. You . . . two . . .” Daisy had scanned the ceiling, searching for words. “Need . . . watch out for her . . . you . . . stick.”

She'd meant stick together, Martha was sure of that. She hadn't told Folly. She felt almost always now her heightened attraction to Folly and how these sensations suspended her from feeling at ease. She'd never know how much Daisy understood, but she liked to think Daisy had a way of knowing right down to the heart how Martha felt. Certainly she hadn't been dumb to Martha's relationship with Cookie. She had visited them in Florida and Martha remembered her saying, “How nice it is you have someone the likes of Cookie caring for you.” When Daisy had taken sick and Martha had come to stay temporarily, then gone to Florida for her things and come back for good, Daisy had asked if she would bring Cookie. “No,” Martha had said, “her people are all there.” She hadn't told Daisy that it was time for them to be finished anyway, that Cookie had taken to spending much of her time in the bars, her mouth getting louder with the juice, and leaving Martha wondering if she were the same Cookie she had loved.

She did not want distance from Folly, but she recognized that already the feeling of attraction stood as an opposition between them. There were times when Martha thought that surely Folly must feel it too, and not mind what she was feeling. Those times when they moved close in the small space of Folly's kitchen and Martha suddenly felt the current run through her, she had looked for a sign from Folly that she had felt it, too. It was hard to imagine that it could flow from one to the other and not be felt by both of them. She could never fully search Folly's face at these times as Folly would usually look away, busy with cooking, and Martha feared the embarrassment of being caught looking for something that wasn't there.

“Stick with her,” Daisy had said, and Martha would. As she pencilled her X strongly in the union box, she willed for many other women to do so also. She was scared for them both that going back to the mill with an open shop was going to be bad news, but whatever it was, they'd go it together. She was willing to pool anything she had. She ached with the hurt Folly would feel if the union didn't have the
strength they needed it to have, soothed that ache with knowing she could count on Folly's strength as well as her own.