Red Hats (7 page)

In the mornings, Alma tried to help out around the house by cooking breakfast for everyone. Angel appreciated it, but Darryl resented the strict diet Alma had put him on. She would make him only two pancakes, as opposed to the six he normally had. She said if he moved more and ate less, he might be able to do more than lie on top of his wife at night. In keeping with the spirit of moving more, Alma
would leave his clothing on the floor for him to bend over and pick up, to help burn a few calories.

Darryl started to stay out late to avoid seeing Alma. He said she was mean as hell and pure evil, even in her sleep, which was the only way he would be in the house with her.

One night, he came home drunk and got into it with Angel. When Alma tried to get involved, Angel told her to back off and let them work out their own problems. Alma didn’t listen, so Darryl grabbed her by the robe and threatened to punch all her teeth out. Angel pulled his own gun on him and told him she would kill him if he didn’t let her mother go. Darryl came to his senses, broke down into tears, and walked out of the house.

“Maybe you should
go to a nursing home, Momma. At least you can make some friends there.” Angel made her mother a cup of Folgers to help steady her nerves.

“I’m a young woman. I’m not going to live in no damn nursing home,” Alma replied.

“Then why don’t you go live with Todd? He said you could stay in his guesthouse. It’s a beautiful one-bedroom and has a full kitchen, with a garden outside where you can grow your own vegetables.”

“First of all, I’m not getting on an airplane and going nowhere. Them death cylinders crash all the time! And it’s not like you can stand on the side of the road and call another when it breaks down. Look, Angel, I appreciate you
opening up your home to me, but I know when my welcome’s done. I’ll head back home. It’s time.”

“You can’t go home, Momma. Let me talk to Darryl, okay? We’ll work something out,” Angel reassured her.

Alma knew her time was up. In the middle of the night, she packed her bags, called a cab, and went to the bus station. Alma could see Angel watching from her darkened bedroom window, crying. It was best to leave.

On the bus
ride home, Alma thought about some of the things Angel had said to her.

“Momma, life is a short ride, and the journey is easier to enjoy if you don’t carry so much luggage. Give those bags of burden to God, and try to open up and let people into your circle so you can start enjoying life. Don’t die a bitter woman. Be a better woman.”

Angel had a way of speaking to Alma’s heart. She didn’t pull punches. Alma knew beyond a doubt that she loved her Angel, who only wanted what was best for her.

But how do you open up when you can’t trust anyone? When you feel the whole world is against you? When every time you try to let your guard down, you get a slap in the face? Alma knew Angel was right, but having friends wasn’t in the cards for her.

Angel begged her to try to work on softening her heart by reading the leather-bound Bible she gave her for her birthday, reminding her that the world was against Jesus,
too, and he allowed love to conquer the world. Alma would only respond by saying that Jesus was a whole mess better than her.

“If they had spit on me back then and I had all the powers he had, I would have turned them into bloated green frogs and then squished them under my sandals. Nobody is going to slap me and get away with it. If I have to turn the other cheek, it will be to show them which side of my ass to kiss.”

Alma did like the story of Jonah. She believed it proved God had a sense of humor. He told Jonah to deliver a message of judgment to the people of Nineveh, but Jonah was frightened of what people would think of him. He ran away and caught a boat in the opposite direction of the city. God caused a huge storm to fall upon the boat, and the people threw Jonah overboard because he claimed God was after him. Sure enough, a massive, slimy fish swallowed him up. After three days of Jonah’s prayers in the fish’s belly, God had the fish spit him out near the city of Nineveh, which he was to condemn. The moral of the story, Alma thought, was that you were going to do what God said to do whether you liked it or not!

Alma noticed the colorful leaves that decorated the tops of trees and the sides of the road. Fall was one of her favorite times of the year, because it reminded her of school when she was young, innocent, and full of hope. Being a good student came easily for Alma, having had a mother who taught English. Alma loved creative writing. She had
received a full liberal arts scholarship from Brandeis University after winning several awards for her poetry and short stories. She remembered her favorite piece, called “The Girl Who Could Fly.” It was about this little girl who discovered she had the power to fly, and when people found out, they wanted to operate on her to understand how she did it. They paid her parents to give her up to science. The little girl flew away to a small town far away from everyone she knew and loved. Vowing never to fly again, she lived as an unhappy mortal until she met a boy who could fly, too. Together they traveled the world and lived happily ever after. Alma wondered why and how she had given up something she loved doing so dearly. How did she go from spending her day having tea parties with her favorite doll, Macy—because that’s where she was bought, Macy’s—making up fantastic stories about things she never knew and places she’d never been, to being this angry old woman who barely could get through the day no matter how beautiful it was? She missed that little girl in her.

What happened to her, Alma? Did you kill her, too?
she wondered, promising God that she would make it her mission to reclaim her joy.

When Alma arrived
at her apartment, she found a package in front of her door. It was from the Red Hats. Inside was a beautiful antique black doll dressed in a purple dress, with a blood-red hat on her head. Alma loved to collect
dolls. Her house was full of them. The obsession stemmed from a childhood where she grew up extremely poor and had only one doll to play with. She lost Macy on a school trip, and her father wouldn’t buy another because he said she shouldn’t have brought it to school. Alma promised herself that when she grew up, she was going to buy herself every doll she had ever seen. Well, almost every one. She hated her father. The man never had a kind word to say, and she couldn’t remember him ever hugging her or telling Alma he loved her. A card came with the package.

Dear Alma,

It was a pleasure meeting you and Angel. All the sisters enjoyed spending a little time with Angel. You certainly named her right. She is an intelligent, sweet, and kind young woman who loves her mother. We know the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We noticed you collect antique dolls and thought you would like this one. May God continue to bless you and yours.

In love,

Sister Dee and the Red Hats!

Alma liked the
card, because it had a beautiful red hat embroidered on the front of it. She liked how silky it felt, very classy. There was also an invitation to a book fair in the park that weekend.

Alma tossed the invitation onto the kitchen table, thinking it and the doll were just a scam to get her to come and spend her hard-earned money at their book fair. She hated anyone who tried to hustle her. Did they think she was born yesterday? She told herself she would be damned if she’d go to that book fair.

Alma sat at the kitchen table, sipping a hot cup of chamomile tea Angel had turned her on to in Texas. It relaxed her and didn’t make her feel groggy the way the pills did. Although she was drinking the tea, she felt cold. She noticed a breeze billow the curtains above the sink. As she went to close the window, Alma slipped on the multicolored rag rug and slammed back-first to the floor. She lay there unable to get up, moaning and asking God to help her. The moans turned to tears, and she asked God to take her.

“What did I do to you, God? Why are you doing this to me? Why couldn’t you just let me die? What do you want from me?” she screamed to heaven.

A strong breeze whisked into the kitchen, blowing the book-fair flyer off the table and onto the floor next to her.

Alma limped through Morningside Park
toward the group of Red Hats stationed at the book fair. Her body ached from the fall. She hadn’t felt this kind of full-body soreness since getting hit by a car at fourteen.

Alma remembered that day clearly, because she was dressed up and skipping her way to Sunday school. Her mother had warned her about running in her good church clothes, so, wanting to be obedient, she’d split the difference between running and walking by skipping real fast. Alma felt she could justify it without technically being a liar. That was mistake number one. The bigger mistake was not going the normal route to church. She had found a nickel and wanted to stop and get some penny candies
to help pass the time at the two-hour sit-down. Back then, a nickel bought a lot of treats. Alma had a difficult time picking which candy she wanted—the shoestring licorice, Kool-Aid stick or the taffy and chocolate cherries—settling on one of each. She’d realized she was running late for service, and that would cost her a spanking, so after sucking down the Kool-Aid stick to give her the energy to skip the six blocks, she took a shortcut past the liquor store that had a German shepherd that was notorious for chasing anyone who ran past the store. The owner used to keep the door open to save on his air-conditioning bill. The mean old dog was kept on a long leash that stopped just short of the door. As Alma skipped past the store, the dog had given chase, barking loudly and almost giving her a heart attack. Alma had forgotten the dog was on its chain and couldn’t get out of the store. She had run into the street to avoid the long fangs coming her way. As soon as she stepped off the curb, a taxi had slammed into her, separating Alma from her candy.

“So glad you could make it, Alma.” Sister Dee greeted her now. “What happened to your leg?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I lost my balance trying to open a window. I’ll be all right.”

“Alma, none of us are getting any younger. I fell down last month. I was just standing up, and the next thing I know, I’m on the ground. The doctor said it was my blood sugar. He said my diabetes is getting worse, so now he’s put me on these medications that make me so tired I need
sugar just to stay awake. Come on, let me show you around, introduce you to some more of the girls.”

Alma was impressed by the different ethnicities of the Red Hats. She’d been sure this was a group of women from some black church who hung out together. She was wrong. Sister Dee explained that the founder of the club, Sue Ellen Cooper, was a white woman who wanted to bring a bunch of women over the age of fifty together to have fun and prove that life begins after your maternal duties end.

The book fair was a way for the women to raise money to travel and help out the less fortunate Red Hats.

“We’re going to Atlantic City next month, and we need some money for chips to gamble, right, girls?” Dee said.

“Yes, Queen Mother!” Joy shouted back.

Alma did not like hearing this black woman addressing a white woman as her queen and mother! It turned her stomach, reminding her of the white woman she used to work for. Mrs. Albertson was an old, angry, racist witch who had lorded her power over Alma as if she were her slave. She’d insisted on being called Madame Albertson. If Alma was a minute late, she would deduct an hour’s pay, even though she knew Alma had a young child at home and was pregnant with another. Mrs. Albertson hadn’t cared if Alma was tired, sick, or even dead—she was determined to get a full day’s work out of her. That included thoroughly cleaning the refrigerator every day, hand-washing the toilet, and waxing the floor on her hands and knees weekly. If the house was clean, she would toss all her clothing on
the floor and have Alma redo the closet. Sometimes she would request it to be color-coordinated, and then after two weeks or so, she would complain that she couldn’t find a particular dress and accuse Alma of stealing it. She would deduct that from her pay, too, threatening to fire her if she didn’t reimburse her. Alma had needed the job too much to quit, but working for that woman was hell. It got to a point where Alma would break down and cry, begging that woman to forgive her for taking the dress she knew she didn’t have, just to keep the job. Mrs. Albertson had seemed to get some sort of sick enjoyment out of breaking Alma down. She would stare at her with her cold blue eyes and a little smirk on her face as she “considered” whether to accept the tearful apology or not. Sometimes the Grinch would wait until Alma finished mopping the floor, then walk over it wet and have her do it again because she saw footprints. What made this old crow so evil Alma could never figure out, but fear of being out of a job reminded Alma to hold her tongue. She would repeat those words in her head throughout the day—
Hold your tongue
—and a voice in her head would shout back,
Holding our tongues kept us in slavery for two hundred years!
One of the happiest days of her life was the one when she quit working for old Madame Albertson. Alma had waited until her boss lady went out for her daily walk, then washed all of her dark clothes in bleach, mopped the floor in molasses, and for good measure, stopped up the toilet with a brown paper bag, took a dump, and left it without flushing. Madame Albertson
had come home to find Alma sitting on her couch and watching television.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Mrs. Albertson had demanded.

Alma had walked right up to the elderly demon. “I’m liberating myself from your slavery, you old bitch. I wanted to thank you for nothing and let you know I left you a little gift in the bathroom. I made it myself, and it looks just like you.”

Alma had whistled as she waltzed out that door for the last time.

“Why do you call her Queen Mother?” Alma now asked Joy sharply.

“Oh, we all give each other nicknames in the Red Hats,” Joy replied.

What’s yours, Sister Slave-a-lot?
Alma wondered to herself.