Toni Morrison - Paradise

"You didn't do all that by yourself, did you?" Mavis gestured toward the garden.

"Except the corn," said Connie.

"Wow."

Connie put the breakfast bowl in the sink. "You want to clean yourself up?"

The rooms full of rooms Mavis imagined to be lying through the swinging doors had kept her from asking to go to a bathroom. Here in the kitchen she felt safe; the thought of leaving it disturbed her. "I'll wait to see who comes by. Then I'll try to get myself together. I know I look a sight." She smiled, hoping the refusal did not signal her apprehension.

"Suit yourself," said Connie and, sunglasses in place, patted Mavis' shoulder as she stepped into her splayed shoes and on out to the yard.

Left alone Mavis expected the big kitchen to lose its comfort. It didn't. In fact she had an outer-rim sensation that the kitchen was crowded with children-laughing? singing? — two of whom were Merle and Pearl. Squeezing her eyes shut to dissipate the impression only strengthened it. When she opened her eyes, Connie was there, dragging a thirty-two-quart basket over the floor. "Come on," she said. "Make yourself useful."

Mavis frowned at the pecans and shook her head at the nutcrackers, picks and bowls Connie was assembling. "No," she said. "Think of something else I can do to help. Shelling that stuff would make me crazy."

"No it wouldn't. Try it."

"Uh uh. Not me." Mavis watched as she organized the tools.

"Shouldn't you put some newspaper down? Be easier to clean up."

"No newspapers in this house. No radio either. Any news we get have to be from somebody telling it face-to-face."

"Just as well," Mavis said. "All the news these days is bad as can be.

Can't do nothing about it anyway."

"You give in too quick. Look at your nails. Strong, curved like a bird's-perfect pecan hands. Fingernails like that take the meat out whole every time. Beautiful hands, yet you say you can't. Make you crazy. Make me crazy to see good nails go to waste." Later, watching her suddenly beautiful hands moving at the task, Mavis was reminded of her sixth-grade teacher opening a book: lifting the corner of the binding, stroking the edge to touch the bookmark, caressing the page, letting the tips of her fingers trail down the lines of print. The melty-thigh feeling she got watching her. Now, working pecans, she tried to economize her gestures without sacrificing their grace. Connie, having launched her into the chore, was gone, saying she had to "see about Mother." Sitting at the table, smelling the pleasure the wind brought through the door, Mavis wondered how old Connie's mother was. Judging by the age of her daughter, she would have to be in her nineties. Also, how long before a customer would come? Had anybody bothered the Cadillac yet? At whatever gas station she got to, would there be a map showing the way back to sweet 70, or even 287? She would go north then, to Denver, then scoot west. With luck she'd be on her way by suppertime. With no luck, she'd be ready to leave in the morning. She would be back on concrete, listening to the car radio that had got her through the silence Bennie left, hours of nonstop driving-two fingers impatiently twirling for the better song, the nicer voice. Now the radio was across a field, down one road, then another. Off. In the space where its sound ought to be was… nothing. Just an absence, which she did not think she could occupy properly without the framing bliss of the radio. From the table where she sat admiring her busy hands, the radio absence spread out. A quiet, secret fire breathing itself and exhaling the sounds of its increase: the crack of shells, the tick of nut meat tossed in the bowl, cooking utensils in eternal adjustment, insect whisper, the argue of long grass, the faraway cough of cornstalks.

It was peaceful, but she wished Connie would return lest she start up again-imagining babies singing. Just as the length of the woman's absence seemed much too long, Mavis heard a car crunching gravel. Then braking. A door slap.

"Hey, old lady." A woman's voice, light, loose.

Mavis turned and saw a dark-skinned woman, limber and moving quickly, mount the steps and halt when she didn't see what she expected.

"Oh, excuse me."

"That's okay," said Mavis. "She's upstairs. Connie."

"I see."

Mavis thought the woman was looking very carefully at her clothes.

"Oh, lovely," she said, coming to the table. "Just lovely." She stuck her fingers into the bowl of pecans and gathered a few. Mavis expected her to eat some, but she let them fall back to the heap. "What's Thanksgiving without pecan pie? Not a thing."

Neither one of them heard the bare feet plopping, and since the swinging doors had no sound, Connie's entrance was like an apparition. "There you are!" The black woman opened her arms. Connie entered them for a long swaying hug. "I scared this girl to death. Never saw a stranger inside here before."

"Our first," said Connie. "Mavis Albright, this is Soane Morgan."

"Hi, hon."

"Morgan. Mrs. Morgan."

Mavis' face warmed, but she smiled anyway and said, "Sorry. Mrs. Morgan," while taking note of the woman's expensive oxford shoes, sheer stockings, wool cardigan and the cut of her dress: summerweight crepe, pale blue with a white collar.

Soane opened a crocheted purse. "I brought some more," she said, and held up a pair of aviator-style sunglasses.

"Good. I got one pair left."

Soane glanced at Mavis. "She eats sunglasses."

"Not me. This house eats them." Fitting the stems behind her ears, Connie tested the dark lenses at the doorway. She turned her face directly to the sun and the "Hah!" she shouted was full of defiance. "Somebody order shelled pecans, or is this your idea?"

"My idea."

"Make a lot of pies."

"Make more than pie." Connie rinsed the sunglasses under the sink tap and peeled away the sticker.

"I don't want to hear, so don't tell me. I came for the you-knowwhat."

Connie nodded. "Can you get this girl some gasoline for her automobile? Take her and bring her back?" She was drying and polishing the new glasses, checking for spots and lint from the towel. "Where is your car?" asked Soane. There was wonder in her voice, as though she doubted anyone in thongs, wrinkled slacks and a child's dirty sweatshirt could have a car.

"Route eighteen," Mavis told her. "Took me hours to walk here, but in a car…"

Soane nodded. "Happy to. But I'll have to get somebody else to drive you back. I would, but I've got too much to do. Both my boys due on furlough." Proudly, she looked at Connie. "House'll be full before I know it." Then, "How's Mother?"

"Can't last."

"You sure Demby or Middleton's not a better idea?" Connie slipped the aviator glasses into her apron pocket and headed for the pantry. "She wouldn't draw but one breath in a hospital. The second one would be her last."

The small pouch Connie placed on top of a basket of pecans could have been a grenade. Positioned on the seat of the Oldsmobile between Mavis and Soane Morgan, the cloth packet emanated tension. Soane kept touching it as though to remind herself that it was there. The easy talk in the kitchen had disappeared. Suddenly formal, Soane said very little, answered Mavis' questions with the least information and asked none of her own.

"Connie's nice, isn't she?"

Soane looked at her. "Yes. She is."

For twenty minutes they traveled, Soane cautious at every rise or turn of the road, however slight. She seemed to be on the lookout for something. They stopped at a one-pump gas station in the middle of nowhere and asked the man who limped to the window for five gallons to carry. There was an argument, peppered with long silences, about the five-gallon can. He wanted Mavis to pay for it; she said she would return it when she came back to fill her tank. He doubted it. Finally they settled for a two-dollar deposit. Soane and Mavis drove away, turned into another road, heading east for what seemed like an hour. Pointing toward a fancy wooden sign, Soane said, "Here we are." The sign read ruby pop.360 on top and lodge 16 at the bottom. Mavis' immediate impression of the little town was how still it was, as though no one lived there. Except for a feed store and a savings and loan bank, it had no recognizable business district. They drove down a wide street, past enormous lawns cut to dazzle in front of churches and pastel-colored houses. The air was scented. The trees young. Soane turned into a side street of flower gardens wider than the houses and snowed with butterflies.