The Black Rose (41 page)

Well, they were a long way from what she wanted, Sarah thought, surveying the dank room that still smelled bitterly like a doused fire. But at least she’d made a start.

“Madam Sarah?”

A voice behind Sarah made her jump, since she hadn’t known anyone else had come in. It was Lizette, the woman who had made Sarah’s lovely wedding dress. The energetic little sprite of a woman, not even five feet tall, had also begged Sarah to teach her how to use the steel comb to treat hair; by now, besides Lelia, Lizette was Sarah’s most successful student. Lizette worked as a chambermaid several days a week, sweetening her income with her dressmaking and hair-pressing. Sarah admired the young woman’s drive, wishing Lelia would strike up a better friendship with her. Lizette was only a year older than Lelia, but since Lizette never had time to visit the nickelodeons or go roller-skating in Lincoln Park, Lelia thought she was a bore.

“Why are you out here so early, Lizette?” Sarah said. Sarah knew that Lizette cleaned hotel rooms in the mornings, so she didn’t expect her to help her with hair customers until the afternoons, when she brought her young son in tow. The four-year-old boy, Reed, was with her now, clinging to his mother’s hand as he gnawed on a half-eaten apple.

Lizette had almond-shaped eyes that reminded Sarah of Anjetta’s, and they were shining brightly this morning. “Madam, I just have to give you a big ol’ hug,” the woman said, wrapping her arms around Sarah. She was so spirited, she nearly knocked Sarah off balance.

“What’s into you, Lizette?”

“You ain’t never gonna guess what I just finished doing this very minute!” Lizette’s face beamed with a smile as she inhaled a deep, satisfying breath. “I walked right to that hotel that’s been running me silly, and I told my boss man I wasn’t going to clean nary a room in my whole life ’cept in my own house. You should’ve seen that man’s face!”

Sarah knew Lizette was unhappy at her job, and she had confided that her boss sometimes tried to grab her and kiss her, as he’d apparently done with many of the colored women who worked for him. Lizette was afraid to tell her husband about the man’s advances because she was sure her husband would try to retaliate, which would be a disaster for her family.

“I figured it out last night after church, Madam! I been pressing heads in my kitchen after I leave from here, right? Well, I been pressin’ so many heads ’til I can make up for that cleaning money an’ still have some left over. That job wasn’t giving me nothing but botherment! When I’m pressing heads at home, I can watch my boy, too. An’ I still have time to sew.”

Lizette had been free to find her own hair customers as long as she used the Glossine and recommended the other Walker products to her customers. Sarah knew Lizette was making good money with hair, but how could she already be earning enough to quit her job?

“Lizette … are you sure, child? That’s a mighty big change—”

“Madam, I even did the figures on paper. Like I done told my husband, I’m workin’ for my own self now!” Lizette said, patting her breastbone with her palm.

“Mama’s
own
self!” the boy repeated, mimicking his mother.

There was a pride shining from Lizette’s face Sarah couldn’t get out of her mind.

C.J. fell away from Sarah beneath their bedsheets, his slick chest heaving with his rapid breaths. “Lord have mercy…” he managed to say between pants. “Damn, I’m ’bout wore out. I thought you said you wanted to drop right to sleep, Sarah.”

Sarah closed her eyes, savoring her body’s thrilling to the memory of C.J.’s warm weight on top of her. She quivered, catching her breath. She saw beads of perspiration glistening on her naked chest before she covered herself. “I thought I did, too,” Sarah said.

C.J. pulled her against him, and they lay in silence for a moment in their moonlit bedroom, listening to each other’s slowing breaths. Sarah’s appetite for C.J.’s touch shocked her. She had nearly forgotten what it was like to make love to a man, but it was also different somehow; the years seemed to have made her responses deeper, as if her passions had been steeping all these years like a pot of tea.

C.J. laughed, and to her his laugh sounded like warm honey being poured on her from head to foot. “I ain’t complainin’, though,” C.J. said. “I better count my blessings. It’s fine with me if we forget to drop right off to sleep every night of the week.”

“I’m just tryin’ to keep you busy so you’ll forget your old habits, that’s all,” Sarah said, only halfway joking. She couldn’t help wondering if C.J. missed the female company he’d always had in such abundance before now. She could still hardly believe he was really hers.

C.J. leaned over her, kissing her forehead, her nose, and then her lips. He met her eyes. “My only old habits are a little whiskey and a cigar now and again. If I’d expected I’d need
all
my old habits, I wouldn’t have taken you for my wife. So you just put that thought to rest.”

Sarah smiled. If she’d had one lingering doubt about the new plans that had been formulating themselves in her mind for the past few days, it had been the question of how her marriage might fare under the strain of long absences. She couldn’t stand it if she thought C.J. would take someone else to his bed. There was no room for lies between them.

“Why so quiet?” C.J. asked, still gazing at her.

“I’ve got some ideas for the company, C.J., but I don’t think you’ll like them.”

“You know I love your ideas, Sarah.”

“You might not now.”

Sarah was silent for a moment, and C.J. waited. Then, slowly, she began to tell him about her conversation with Lizette. As she talked in a hush, recounting how Lizette had said she was working for her
own self
, Sarah felt her heartbeat quickening. “Sure, Sarah,” C.J. said when she was finished. “What you expect? That girl’s been sellin’ Hair Grower for us like blazes ever since you taught her how to use that comb.”

Sarah bounced on the mattress beside him, her mind on fire. She’d made the mistake of drinking a Coca-Cola earlier that evening; she loved the sugary soda drink, but she knew it would keep her wide awake a good part of the night.
Relieves Fatigue
was the truth! “Well, C.J… . don’t you see? How many women like Lizette you think are out there wishin’ they could up and quit?”

“A whole lot. You included, ’til now,” C.J. said.

“That’s
right
.” Sarah felt a surge of adrenaline, and her voice rose. “That’s how I figured out what we need to be doin’. We need to be trainin’ women on how to use that comb. We need to let them sell the Wonderful Hair Grower and Glossine on their own. All the ads in the world won’t do what I’m thinking about, C.J. If colored women start doing the hair themselves, they’ll sell it for us just like Lizette. We’ll make a profit, but at the same time we’ll be givin’ these women something they’ve never had before. We’ll be givin’ them
freedom
.”

“Wait, wait, wait …” C.J. said, shifting until he was sitting up. He sighed. “Sarah, hold up. Now, I agree with you. But you’re putting the cart before the horse. You’d need to open up—”

“A school!” Sarah said. “That’s right. I open a school, and then I charge a price to take the course to fix the hair. And I’d teach it right, too, not just any ol’ slipshod way. When they’re done, they get some kind of paper from me and they’re in business.”

Patiently, C.J. reached over to hold Sarah’s shoulders so he could look into her eyes. “You been drinkin’ that Coca-Cola again, ain’t you?” he said. “I told you about that at bedtime.”

“That’s not it,” Sarah said. “I’m just seein’ something, C.J. I’m seein’ how Walker Manufacturing Company is about more than selling Hair Grower. If you’d seen Lizette’s face, the way she told me she was out from under that boss man’s thumb …”

“Shoot, you don’t think my mama cleaned and cooked, too? I
do
see it, Sarah. But I also see how everything has to be in time. You need to make a name for yourself first.”

At that, Sarah sighed. She knew C.J. was right. But she had already decided she couldn’t make a name the way she wanted to in Denver. It was fine to base the manufacturing office here, but the city didn’t have enough Negroes to support her. There weren’t nearly as many Negroes in Denver as she had hoped, not like there had been in St. Louis.

“C.J., remember what you said to me at the ball? How I make a hullabaloo? Well, I don’t need to go around a bunch of biggity balls doin’ that. I need to go out and talk to folks—you know, beat ’em out the bushes. I need to find the ladies who cook and clean and wash, folks that don’t read the papers and don’t dance the waltz. And I need to get it so they’re either using our products or else selling them. Now,
that’s
how you build up a name, C.J. When people see you in person, they remember who you are.”

“You’re talkin’ about bein’ a drummer,” C.J. said. “That’s not for you, Sarah. I’ve done it myself, and a drummer’s life is no kind of life for a man, much less a woman. Livin’ on trains, folks slamming doors in your face, runnin’ you off with a shotgun sometimes. Come on, now. The ads are going fine. It’s better to let people come to
you
.”

Sarah sighed. “Yeah, but most folks out there don’t know the difference between Madam C.J. Walker and a whole bunch of other ads for hair growers, and most of ’em don’t work worth a lick. Why should they try mine?”

“The ads,” C.J. said, sounding slightly irritated for the first time that night. “What have I been saying? We do a better ad, and it’s the advertising that brings them.”

“It’s not enough,” Sarah said, believing it with all her heart. She and C.J. could advertise for years and never attract people the way she wanted, she thought. Besides, she would need more than ads to teach women how to use her combs.

“Look, Sarah,” C.J. said, stroking her hand. “Think about what I told you ’bout Scott Joplin that first night. Remember? Look at him: He’s on top of the world with ragtime, but he can’t be satisfied. An’ I bet if he does do some opera, he’ll want somethin’ else next.”

“What’s wrong with that? He just wants more,” Sarah said. She’d expected resistance from C.J., but she still felt rising disappointment as she realized she might not be able to convince him to share her vision for what the company could be. More and more, C.J. had been making satisfied noises, settling in, when Sarah just felt herself growing more impatient.

“Folks like that can’t never be happy, that’s what’s wrong with it,” C.J. said. “You never look at what you’ve done, put your hands on your hips, and say with pride, ‘I did it.’ Shoot, Sarah, when I showed you that building I found cheap as dirt, you hardly gave me a smile.”

At that, Sarah felt a twinge of guilt. C.J. had worked hard to find them an affordable rent, and she knew he’d felt hurt when she wasn’t more excited. When she was silent, C.J. went on. “And I know A’Lelia and me don’t always see eye to eye, but you just ask her. She would agree with me. You need to learn how to be satisfied.”

Satisfied?

Suddenly C.J.’s words sounded like a betrayal. What was the point of trying to build a company at all, if she was supposed to be satisfied from the very start? What if she’d just been satisfied washing clothes? Or satisfied to go bald?

“I don’t believe this is C.J. Walker talking,” Sarah said. “Mister ‘Advertising Re-vo-lu-tion.’ Mister ‘I know how to sell a business better than anyone or anything.’ ”

“Don’t mock my words,” C.J. said. She knew she’d stung him, because his voice was tight. “I
do
know how to sell a business, but I also know how to keep my senses. Woman, we just rented an office space we can barely pay for, and we’ve got orders to fill. We don’t have the money to send you or nobody else on a sales trip. And even if we did, we don’t have time. We need to be here. I don’t see why you’re gettin’ all excitable just when things are startin’ to work out right. You ever heard of bankruptcy, Sarah? That’s what happens when businesses run out of money. And what you’re saying sounds like bankruptcy to me, all right.”

Frustrated, Sarah blinked fast. How could she make him understand?

“C.J… .” she said, her tone gentler. “You know how you like me tellin’ folks I got my formula from a dream? Well, I think maybe I did at that. Maybe it’s dreams that keep me awake when I try to go to sleep, when I get all these ideas and I can’t stop thinkin’ about them. If that’s true, then maybe this idea is part of a dream, too. Some dreams come when you’re asleep, and some come when you’re awake. I can’t explain to you how I know it, but I know it just the same: The Walker Company will never be what it can be if I don’t go out and tell those ladies what I can give them. They need me, and I need them. Now, you may be right—maybe we can’t afford for us both to go—but one of us has to. And that one’s got to be me.”

There was a long, strained silence in the room. After a while, Sarah began to wonder if C.J. might not say another word. Then, at last, his voice came in the darkness.

“You don’t like to leave nobody with choices, do you, Sarah?” he said. “I could say, ‘Well, fine, Sarah, but let’s wait a year ’til we have more money.’ Or I could say, ‘No, Sarah, I think that’s pure crazy talk.’ But nothing I can say would matter to you. Once it’s in your head, it’s set, no matter what. That’s not right, in my book. Not when folks are partners.”

The words, spoken so plainly, sounded ugly to Sarah’s ears. She opened her mouth to deny his charge, but could she, really? What
could
C.J. say that would change her mind?

“One thing could sway me,” Sarah said. “If you said you’d be gone when I came back.”

She’d meant to let C.J. know she cared for him so much that her feelings were more important than her ideas, no matter how much she believed in her ideas. Instead her words had come out sounding like she expected an ultimatum. And what if he gave her one? What then?

C.J. gave a sound that was a mingled sigh and chuckle, shaking his head. “That’s no kinda choice, woman,” he said. “Maybe you just don’t know nothin’ about giving choices.”

“Maybe I don’t, then,” Sarah said quietly. “Nobody ever gave me none. You?”