The Black Rose (36 page)

With a few extra dollars from C.J., Sarah paid a steelworker to design a comb for her that was
exactly
what she wanted; the teeth were much closer together than the comb the French woman had given her, and they turned slightly
away
from the scalp because experience had taught her that it would be easier to manage that way. If she was happy with the comb, C.J. told her, she would one day need to order dozens of them, even hundreds. It was very important for her pressing comb to be of her own design, he’d said, because that would help protect her against people who would try to imitate her once she was better known.

“And believe me, my dear, they’ll imitate,” C.J. said, reclining in the broad parlor chair where Alex had once sat. Like all of the Breedloves’ furniture, the parlor chairs were simple but tasteful in a way Sarah had never had time to strive for in her own furniture in St. Louis. She never had extra money for furniture that wasn’t absolutely essential. The crimson-colored seat cushions were badly faded, indicating that Mrs. Breedlove had probably bought her family’s parlor suite secondhand at a reduced price. “But first, we gotta bring in the customers, Sarah.”

“In St. Louis,” Sarah said, “I never got so much fuss as one time when I combed out a lady’s hair on her front porch. Folks came and carried on ’til you’d think it was a circus act.”

“That’s right!” C.J. said. “That’s what you need to do here. Do your demonstrations in public places as much as you can. Have chairs so folks passing can take a seat an’ even drink a cup of coffee while they watch. We want to get to the point where folks pass by and say, ‘Oh, look, there’s Sarah McWilliams! She’s that lady who grows hair!’ And that brings me to the ads… . Sarah, you told me how your hair was falling out. Do you have any photographs showing the way you used to look before?”

Surprised, Sarah paused. “Well … I might have one hid somewhere… .”

“See, here’s what I’m thinking: You know why you were so big at that church picnic in St. Louis when you let your hair down? ’Cause those folks
knew
you when you were having those troubles. They could see the difference and say, ‘Damn, I gotta have some o’
that
.’ So if we put a photograph in the newspaper showing the way you used to look—”

Sarah shook her head firmly. She’d taken such care with her thick hair, which grew to her shoulders when it was combed out and pressed, and now he expected her to show the whole city what she’d looked like in the midst of her misery. She wouldn’t even want C.J. to see how she’d looked then! A cruel, careless voice seeped into her memory:
Ain’t nobody here but that
baldhead washerwoman
.

“I’d be so ashamed, C.J.”

“Yes, Sarah, but right next to it we’ll put a photograph showing how you look
now
. You don’t think it would sell hair grower if everyone could see the difference just like in St. Louis?”

Sarah’s heart surged. He was right! If people saw the way she looked now and compared her hair to the patchy, tangled mess in a photograph Etta had talked her into taking a long way back, they would
have
to believe her hair grower worked. She was the proof!

C.J. grinned at her, seeing her mind at work. “Now you got it! See what I’m talkin’ ’bout? There ain’t nothin’ to be ’shamed of if it sells your product. That’s the first rule. Next, you need a name for it.”

“Wonderful Hair Grower!” Sarah said quickly. She’d been thinking about that for some time, and she liked the sound of it.

C.J. considered it, pursing his lips with a nod. “That sounds good. Folks will remember it. But you know what? I say it needs to be more personal, more about
you
. It’s your face we’re selling in the ads, remember, and you’re the one who’ll be doing demonstrations.”

Anjetta, who had been knitting quietly in a corner as she listened, startled Sarah when she spoke suddenly: “Aunt Sarah’s Wonderful Hair Grower,” Anjetta piped up. “Like that lady Aunt Jemima who has that flapjack batter!”

Sarah made a face, shaking her head. Anjetta wasn’t old enough to have been called “Auntie” by whites, so she wouldn’t understand how insulting that sounded to Sarah’s ears. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I ain’t tryin’ to be nobody’s aunt but yours,” she said. “No, thank you.”

“Madam Sarah’s Hair Grower?” C.J. suggested.

Sarah wasn’t sure. She liked the sound of
Madam
, all right, because it reminded her of Madam Mary McLeod Bethune, who had started the school for colored girls in Florida last year. The word definitely had an air of dignity, and she’d played with it herself. But somehow …

Sarah sighed. “Madam Sarah sounds like I’m some kind of fortune-teller, don’t it?”

“Well, you better think about it. Maybe we don’t need the whole name when we’re just starting out, but it makes a big difference if people know what to ask for.”

Sarah smiled to herself. C.J. certainly used the word
we
a lot, she had noticed. He considered her a project and an investment, since he’d been kind enough to give her a few dollars to buy supplies she needed, but the word
we
had a sweet ring she hadn’t heard from a man’s lips in what seemed like a lifetime.

Again, C.J. was gazing at her as if he knew exactly what was in her mind, and then his gaze vanished. “I guess that’s enough business for tonight,” he said, standing up as if on cue. He straightened the creases in his pants. “Just think about what you want your name to be, Sarah.”

“I sure will, C.J.,” Sarah said, trying desperately to ignore a persistent voice in the back of her mind already playing with a name she might not mind writing on the new Wish Board she’d nailed over her bed:
MADAM
C.J. WALKER.

It sounded like the most perfect name in the world.

“Get in the wagon, ladies! We’re goin’ to church.”

C.J.’s arrivals were rarely announced and somehow always unexpected. Some days he wanted to take her for long walks, and sometimes he hurried her to social events to show her off like a prize. This time he pulled up in front of the Breedloves’ house with a horse-drawn wagon with seating for six. The wooden wagon was much older than the buggy he’d appeared in when he first picked Sarah up in St. Louis, and Sarah guessed he must have borrowed the buggy from a friend with more means.

C.J. was dressed in a sober black suit and tie and a black derby, looking like a preacher himself. She almost didn’t recognize him.

“Since when do you go to church?” Sarah asked. The Sunday-school picnic was the closest she’d ever known C.J. Walker to come to a church. She and her nieces Anjetta, Thirsapen, Mattie, and Gladis had gathered on the porch, ready to begin their walk to services. “You goin’ to Shorter Chapel AME? That’s where I belong.”

“Not today you don’t. We’re goin’ across town to Shiloh Baptist. Come on, or we’ll be walkin’ in late,” C.J. said.

Her nieces gave her questioning looks—and Anjetta complained loudly that she’d been looking forward to seeing a young man at Shorter—but Sarah convinced them to climb into C.J.’s wagon. “Hold on, ladies,” C.J. warned them, then, with a high snap of his horsewhip, his two horses seemed to nearly gallop down the street. Thirsapen, younger than Anjetta and more excitable, let out a startled yell as their seats jounced across the cobblestones.

“I still don’t know what we’re doin’ here, C.J.,” Sarah hissed after they’d arrived at the distant church, their hair slightly mussed and their hats askew from the ride. Groups of strangers filed into the brick structure, gazing at them with curiosity.

“You’ll know soon, my dear,” C.J. said, patting her hand the way he always did to assure her that he knew what he was doing. So far he always
had
known, so Sarah held her tongue.

Once they were seated and C.J.’s hat was off, he looked uncharacteristically reflective, his head turned upward toward the pulpit with rapt interest. Occasionally he even closed his eyes and nodded. What had happened to him? Sarah wondered. Had he found Jesus overnight?

She got her answer when a deacon mentioned C.J.’s name soon after the service began.

“Of course, many of us know Brother Walker from his doings around town,” the deacon said, “and he has asked to speak a few words to us.”

Slowly, soberly, C.J. brought himself to his feet. His hands were folded in front of him, and he hung his head slightly as the members of the church whispered to themselves and rustled in their seats to turn around and face him where he stood at the center of the church. Apparently his presence was a surprise.

“Thank you for letting me speak today, Deacon, good Reverend—church family.” C.J. drew a long, choppy breath, and Sarah wondered for an instant if his eyes were misting with tears. “Like a wanderer who has been abroad and lost his way, I have been much too far from home.”

There was a gentle chorus of
amens
.

C.J. bit his lip, then he went on. “Some of y’all may know how far my travels have taken me from time to time, and Satan loves a man on the road, good folks. Every sin you can think of is waiting for any man right outside the train depot. But I’m so happy to come before you today to let you know that while I have fallen to too many temptations Satan has put in my path, I never lost sight of my way in the fog, and at long last I have come back home. Praise God.”

This time, the
amens
were rousing and heartfelt. A few people even applauded, including Sarah, who was gazing at C.J. in awe. She was accustomed to his eloquence by now, especially when he spoke before groups, but she had never been allowed to glimpse so deeply into his heart. She still had a lot to learn about him, but why hadn’t she known … ?

“We all came to hear God’s word and a song this mornin’, an’ I know you’ve all got your fine Sunday suppers waiting back at home, so I don’t want to keep you …” C.J. said.

“Take your time, son,” encouraged an old man from their pew.

“My heart is full today,” C.J. went on in a singsong voice, “and I just wanted to share my joy. Because God has
blessed
me. I mean, He has truly blessed me. He blesses me from the time I open my eyes in the mornin’ ’til I close ’em again at night. Any of y’all feel blessed today?”

The congregation answered as one, the applause louder this time. The organist even played a flourish from the pulpit, giving his words more strength. Sarah’s heart danced. By now, she felt so awestruck that a small doubt began forming in her mind. Was he being sincere?

“But family, I
know
I am blessed today because God has brought a special person into my presence, and it would be a genuine sin not to share my bounty with all of you. A woman has moved all the way from St. Louis, Missouri, to join us in Denver, and I believe God helped me find the right words to convince her to come to us. Family, this woman has a hair preparation that God whispered to her in a divine dream—a preparation that
grows
hair—and she has made a new home here so that
all
colored women right here in Denver can have the beautiful hair God intended. If I can just ask her to stand …”

Sarah’s heartbeat, which had begun racing as soon as C.J. uttered the words
woman
and
St. Louis
, was now so loud in her ears that she couldn’t hear anything else. C.J.’s mouth was still moving, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She felt weak, grasping at the smooth wooden pew in front of her so she wouldn’t sway in her seat. What was he doing?

C.J. pulled gently on her arm, bringing her to her feet. “That’s right … Here she is in person at our congregation today … the divinely touched Madam Sarah McWilliams!”

If Sarah could have picked one moment in her life to suddenly disappear from sight, even if it meant dropping dead on the floor, it would have been right then. Her nieces stared at her in a row of four wide-eyed faces. Sarah practically had to lean on C.J. for support as she stood up in the crowded church. The only reason he’d stood up at all was to pretend to repent so he could advertise her hair product right in the middle of services! And he’d told an outright lie, at that. Why had he said her formula had come to her in a divine dream?

He’s goin’ to hell for sure, and he’s about to take me down there with him,
she thought.

Sarah was mortified, angry, shocked. But all she could do was smile and nod at the worshipers, who were applauding for her with glowing, smiling faces.

“I thank Jesus for giving Madam Sarah McWilliams her divine knowledge, and I know you all will, too. Good morning, y’all, and God bless,” C.J. finished with a small wave, and sat down.

Sarah had collapsed back to her seat as soon as he released her arm, her heart still pounding. Unable to contain her anger, she stamped on C.J.’s foot. His muffled cry was drowned out as the choir stood and began to sing.

“What’s wrong with you, woman?” he whispered in her ear.

“What’s wrong with
me
? Why’d you stand up tellin’ those lies? You know good and damn well I didn’t have no dream—”

“Shhhhh,” C.J. cautioned her, patting her hand before she drew it quickly away. “What you expect me to say, you’re a washerwoman who cooked it up on your kitchen stove? Trust me, I know how to get folks’ attention. Now, hush.”

Trust me
. No she wouldn’t either, Sarah thought. This would be the last time she’d jump blindly into C.J. Walker’s wagon and let him drag her across town. She was grateful for his help, but she wasn’t going to be humiliated again. And in God’s house! Sarah seethed through the service, gripping her hymnal tightly. She couldn’t wait for the service to end, because she was ready to finish telling C.J. exactly what she thought of his fast-talking, truth-bending ways.

But she didn’t have the chance. After the service was over, Sarah was penned in by a dozen women complimenting her hair and asking about her divine formula. When Sarah caught C.J.’s eye, she saw him standing at the end of the pew with her nieces, smirking. He winked.

“Madam McWilliams, could you tell me about your dream?” asked a beautiful brown-skinned young woman with dimpled cheeks. The hair visible to Sarah beneath the woman’s hat looked coarse and dry, exactly the way Sarah’s had once looked, and Sarah knew she could work wonders for this woman with her hair grower and pressing comb. If she had the chance.