Sugar (6 page)

The women would transform then; their eyes would go wild and they’d have to fight to control the froth that formed at the corners of their mouths. “Oh, I seen her in town. She look like a harlot if there ever was one. What she gotta dress that way for? And all that makeup! She wear wigs that them white women wear, long, blond or red! I tell you, Pearl, not in all my years have I seen a sight like her. Umph!” Their words would run in a fast stream that made Pearl’s head hurt.

Pearl would just raise her eyebrows. “Really,” she’d say with exasperation.

“Yes, really. You better watch yourself, living so close to her and all. Best you keep away from her, she don’t look like she mean nobody no good. Coming through town without even a hello. Umph! Who does she think she is?”

Pearl would close her door to their backs and their two-faced attitudes. She didn’t much like people like that, and didn’t care to eat food made by people with such wicked hearts, so the pie, bread or cake would end up in the garbage.

Chapter Four

P
EARL
blushed mauve with embarrassment as she ascended the steps. They creaked loudly under her weight and announced her arrival to everyone in and around the house. She’d been reduced to following the example of the gossiping women that came to this very same door with the intention of weeding out this foul seed that was now living among them. Befriend her, find out who she was and what she was about and then run her off when they find that she did not meet with their requirements. She being the color of crude oil and maintaining its qualities, Sugar would not and could not mix. That was their only interest. Pearl’s intentions were different.

From the first day Sugar arrived and Pearl laid eyes on her from the shadows of her hallway, she was struck by the familiarity of her face. Her heart had skipped an entire beat when the woman stopped in front of her house. It wasn’t because of how she looked or the way she was dressed that threw Pearl for a turn, it was her profile that caused her to catch her breath and grab her chest. For a split second Sugar looked everything like her Jude. Sweet, sweet Jude, spending the rest of eternity in a pine box, six feet underground.

For a quick instant Pearl thought Sugar was Jude and had to control the impulse to run out through the front door and grab the woman in her arms. But then Sugar turned toward her and smiled and Jude’s face melted away like lard left out in the hot sun.

Pearl had to, needed to see her without the annoyance of shadows. She wanted to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her again.

For the first year after Jude died she seemed to see her face everywhere. In her dreams, looking up at her from a dish that rested in the sink waiting to be cleaned, in her own reflection in the mirror and peeking at her from behind the living room drapes. Sometimes she would call to her, “Jude? Jude, baby, is that you?” And walk over to where she thought she saw her daughter’s almond eyes. Joe, if he was there, would grab her firmly by the shoulders and guide her back to bed or the couch. “She gone, baby,” he’d say and sit and rock her until the tears and weeping were done.

It was the hardest time in her life and after fifteen years it was still hard.

The worst incident had come when she and Joe went to Short Junction to meet the train. Joe’s nephew and his wife were coming in from Jackson to spend some time with them. It wasn’t too long after Jude’s death. Colored papers were still hot with the story. No one had been picked up as a suspect and the police had all but given up on their halfhearted efforts at finding the killer.

The wife of the nephew was a nurse in Jackson and Joe had felt it would be a good idea to have her around. Pearl didn’t seem to be getting any better; he thought he would lose her to grief.

Pearl stood beside him, lifeless, shoulders slumped, giving her a hunchbacked appearance. Her dress hung slack from her body, which was growing thinner by the day. Her straw hat sat limp on her head and stiff gray strands of hair poked out from beneath it like wild weeds. Her eyes were small dull black stones that held vast emptiness. She was nothing more than a dead tree trunk in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the station.

Joe was holding her hand and looking toward the train that had just pulled in. Joe Jr. and Seth stood restlessly behind them, tugging at their shirt collars. People rushed to the train, waiting anxiously for loved ones to appear. Children chased each other around and between the legs of grown folks, and porters moved like sleek, black wildcats to and fro, moving large steamer trunks through the buzz of people like rats through an intricate maze.

“Here they come, Pearl,” Joe whispered to her and squeezed her lifeless hand. He was waving at them as they approached. Pearl lifted her head slightly and tried to offer a weak smile, but none would come. Jude had taken her smile with her. And then her head bounced. She caught sight of a girl, just the same age as Jude, dressed in a dress that was too mature for her. Her face was painted, hiding the last threads of innocence. She turned to say something to the man that was with her, excitement swirling all over her face. Pearl saw her. Saw Jude. And began to walk toward her, slow at first, pulling Joe along with her. He followed, believing she was walking to greet his nephew, but she blew straight past them, her speed increasing to a run, leaving them standing, mouths agape, in shock. “Pearl?” Joe had yelled above the throng of the people. “Wha—” and then he saw what Pearl was rushing toward. He saw the girl that looked so much like his dead daughter and his heart thumped hard in his chest. He gripped Pearl’s hand and jerked her sharply backward; she slammed into his chest and then turned eyes on him that reflected such savagery it made him shudder and he smelled his own sudden fear break out on his body in tiny beads of sweat.

She spoke to him between clenched teeth and quivering lips. Pearl looked like a trapped animal. “Turn me loose, Joe Taylor.” And he did, without thinking of the consequences, he turned her loose and with the agility of a child, Pearl raced through the station toward the young woman and she screamed her dead daughter’s name as she went, “Jude! Juuuudeeee!!!!”

Thank goodness it was too late. The girl had boarded the train. “All aboard!” was yelled one final time and the whistle was sounded. Steam bellowed out from beneath the cars and then the train started its steady movement as it pulled slowly out of the station. Pearl was running alongside it, her hands reaching out to touch the steel cars that were now swiftly whisking past her. She called Jude’s name one last time and collapsed onto the platform.

A year passed before Pearl smiled. Another year before her laugh, high and gay, was heard again.

Not a day went by without her thinking of her daughter, but she kept the vision of her mutilated body buried deep in a section of her mind reserved for horrible things that scared and frightened her.

Pearl reconstructed her life, bit by tiny painful bit and now a woman, just the profile of her Jude, was slowly fragmenting what she had spent fifteen years putting back together.

Pearl balanced the sweet potato pie in one hand and knocked on the chipped and peeling screen door with the other. The window to the right was open and the curtains pulled aside revealing the misty gray-black within. She resisted the urge to tilt her head to peer inside. That’s what someone else would do, she told herself. She waited and then knocked again, the sound of her knuckles making rapid contact with the wood echoing loudly up and down the street.

She shifted on her feet and looked at the rocking chair that moved gently back and forth in the warm spring breeze. Small clay pots filled with mint and jasmine lined the base of the partition that encircled the porch area. The plants were in full bloom and enveloped the house with their fragrant soothing aromas.

Ivy crept silently along the side of the house and stretched over to run the length of the banister. Pearl was amused; she’d never noticed the ivy before. Not even when Old Mrs. Wilks was living there.

Pearl knocked again. Still no answer. She sat down in the rocking chair and rested the warm pie on her lap. “I’ll just rest a bit,” she lied to herself. She was actually lying in wait. She rocked slowly back and forth, the yielding sounds of the chair and the smells of mint and jasmine easing away any apprehensions she may have arrived with.

The previous owner, Beulah Wilks, had been dead and gone for more than ten years. She’d been a nice old woman, pint-sized and frail with dull brown eyes and hair like snow, soft and white. Pearl and Beulah had made small talk over the years; neighborly chit chat that unfolded their lives to each other.

Beulah Wilks moved to Bigelow from Waco, Texas, with her husband and infant son. The husband died not too long after they settled in and she raised her son alone, supported by her deceased husband’s war pension and her tailoring skills. She never remarried and never mentioned to Pearl any desire to marry. “Men are like children. They need too much time and attention. I ain’t had the patience to go back to mothering two men instead of one, so’s I stayed alone and liked it.” Pearl was taken aback by the old woman’s candor—talk like that was nearly alien coming from a woman who was raised in a time when they believed a woman needed a man to survive and the man made the woman complete.

Beulah watched Pearl’s sons, Joe Jr. and Seth, move from boys to men and then North. She was there when Jude was found, and sent casseroles of food over daily for three months.

During that time Pearl had never met the son Beulah spoke constantly about. She glowed with delight whenever she said or heard his name mentioned: “Clemon.”

He was her pride and joy and although she didn’t see him often, he faithfully sent her a letter with money the first of every month. “Had a little trouble ’round these parts some time ago,” Beulah confided. “He don’t feel safe comin’ ’round here no more.” The old woman never mentioned what type of trouble and Pearl didn’t ask.

The one and only time Pearl had laid eyes on him was about ten years ago when Beulah passed away, fell down dead among the beloved flowers, fruits and vegetables she spent all her time tending.

Pearl remembered he was a slight man, built like his mother, so small that a strong wind could come by and lift him from the ground and carry him up into the treetops. Pearl addressed him as “Mr. Wilks.”

She held his small hand in hers and stared solemnly at the bald spot on his head that so perfectly reflected the sun, and said her condolences: “She was a mighty fine woman, your mother was.” Joe squeezed his shoulder and nodded in agreement. She had approached him after the funeral as he was preparing to leave. His mother’s body lay waiting inside her coffin on a wagon. He was taking her body back to Texas for burial.

“Thank you,” he said without looking at them and walked away.

The house had stood empty for all those years, no FOR SALE sign in the front yard, the fruits, flowers and vegetables dying from lack of love and attention.

Pearl rose from the rocking chair, her eyes wet with the memory of loss, and turned to knock one last time. The pie was cold now and her heart had cooled along with it. A tall dark woman stood in the doorway staring directly at Pearl, an off-white towel wrapped loosely around her head and short blue robe cinched tight around her long body. Her thighs glistened wet with water.

She looked annoyed, her face was twisted to one side with irritation and she watched Pearl through her slanted eyes.

Pearl was startled and stumbled back, her behind hitting sharply against the banister, causing her to cry out with pain and surprise.

“Yes?” Sugar said as she eyed the woman and at the same time reached into the breast pocket of her robe, pulling out a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches. Pearl could not respond; she was staring intently at the woman’s face. She wanted to reach out and touch it, scrape away the features that weren’t Jude’s, leaving behind the ones that were.

Sugar lit the cigarette and it dangled loosely from the corner of her mouth. She squinted her eyes against the rising smoke. “Yes?” she said, louder now, more intense.

“I—I . . .” was all that Pearl could issue. She was stunned stupid and had forgotten her very reason for being there.

Sugar stood back on her long mahogany legs and adjusted the towel around her head. “You just come by to use my rocker?” Sugar said. It was more an accusation than a question. She inhaled deeply on her cigarette and let the smoke out in tiny puffs of white.

Pearl found her voice. She opened her mouth and allowed the words to spill out in a senseless jumble, hoping at the end they would combine and become something intelligent. “I’m s-sorry for rocking in your chair. I just came by to introduce myself—I mean, welcome you to Bigelow.” Pearl looked again at the glistening thighs and then down to the small puddle that was forming beneath Sugar.

“Did I—I come at a bad time?” she said a bit too loudly. She jerked a bit at the volume of her voice and then halted her babbling, breathlessly awaiting a response.

Sugar smirked at the short, wide woman in her starched blue dress and stiff white collar. So much perfection in one place was unsettling to her. “Yes, yes you did,” she said, her voice chilled and stiff.

“Shoot, I sure am sorry, Miss,” Pearl uttered and shifted her eyes away from Sugar. She wanted so much to stare into her face, but pulled her eyes away from those familiar features and concentrated instead on the staircase just behind her. As an afterthought and after a short period of silent awkwardness, she shoved the pie out before her. The movement was hard and fast and it slammed into the half open door that Sugar held ajar with one hand. The impact startled Pearl and she released the plate; it went crashing to the floor, sending bits of crust and sweet potatoes across the porch.

They stood there looking stupidly at the mess that had been made. Pearl went down effortlessly to one swollen knee, picked up the pan and began gathering up the broken pie bits, apologizing as she did.

Sugar did not move, but continued to draw on her cigarette as she watched the old woman’s head bob up and down and listened to her
Lord have mercy
s and
For goodness’ sake
s.