Natashia Deon - Grace

SOME OF OUR friendships won’t outlast our usefulness to the other person. When their need for us is gone, so are we. But I cain’t say for certain that me and Cynthia was ever friends. But she wanted something from me that shouldn’t be given away on a handshake deal. A woman’s body is hers, just like a man’s is his. Every woman should make her own choices and consider what’s up for grabs and the consequences. ’Cause she’s priceless. . ’til she names her price. I got wrapped up in Cynthia’s ideas of salvation. And there was no good ending to something like that.

It’s why I woke this morning in the dark, trying to be as quiet as I could. Didn’t want to wake her. Cynthia don’t keep nothing with no value. Worst, something with no value that cost her something. So I made my bed and pulled the curtains together so the sun wouldn’t come in when it rose, put on my white dress and tiptoed around the room, and held the bedroom door to keep it from squeaking open.

Even though she ain’t got one word to say to me, I keep showing up for work every day.

I don’t eat her food.

Jeremy would feed me but he don’t hardly keep no food at his. “A bachelor,” he say. “In transition,” he say. He got his place up for sale and don’t want to make no rush decisions on what he’ll do next but he said I’m going with him if he go. And even though no minister will marry us, we’ll make promises to each other soon. But right now, we got to be patient. In the meantime, Albert let’s me eat with him every morning and night.

I can already feel it’s gon’ be cold outside. This hallway’s ten degrees colder than my room and it’s even colder in this saloon. I bunch my clothes to my chest. I twist the handle on the parlor door — a shortcut to outside. It’s locked. But there are men’s voices coming from inside. Maybe another holdover that Mr. Shepard’s making a fool.

I keep up the hall to the back door, slide out of it, feel the breeze of cold air blow my night stank off. I take off running toward the henhouse and through its door made of loose planks and wire.

Fallen feathers rise from the gush of the opening door and I take six eggs that Cynthia won’t miss. Two for me and four for Albert. The door clanks shut behind me.

Dry thistles in the grass prick my ankles as I rush across Cynthia’s field out front, then across the road for Albert’s shop. It glows from inside. He’s burning trash in a tin bucket, where orange and gray flakes lift their flat bodies and hang in the air. I fan them away from my face.

Albert pours a pitcher of water over his hands and head and into that bucket, wipes his eyes when he sees me standing in the doorway. He don’t say a word. Don’t like our morning ritual disturbed by voices.

When he finishes drying hisself, I give him the eggs. He cracks ’em over his metal tray, holds ’em over the fire, lets ’em sizzle. I sit behind him warm, watch him separate mine from his. He’ll put mine on his only good plate — a shiny white platter with painted blue trees.

The firelight on his red hair makes it look ashy and dirty blonde. His hairless arms seem yellow. He flips the eggs with his flat tool and gives me my share. I wait for ’em to cool.

As soon as his finish, he spoons ’em up and eats ’em piping hot from his hammered-flat metal tray. When he’s done, he holds his empty tray in his hands and don’t look at me. He never does. Instead he stares out and around his shop where metal bits and shavings have spiraled to the ground like silver locks of hair.

Metal trinkets are pushed back on shelves. A grinder, a saw, and a sander’s there, too. He got a water pitcher on the floor for drinking and it’s covered with a pie tin to keep the black dust out. It’s everywhere — that dust. A black handprint is stamped on the red-brick wall. Maybe it’s from holding hisself up or bracing hisself to reach down.

After another second of sitting, Albert gets up and starts stacking his iron next to the furnace. That’s his sign that it’s time for me to leave. I take my steaming-hot plate to the door with me, about to push it open. “The Railroad’s coming this week,” he say.

My stomach snatches.

“I woulda told you sooner, but I just got told it last night. Might be the last time. Every time might be. So be ready.”

I nod. Knew happy with Jeremy couldn’t last forever.

My food was cold before I got back to the saloon. The whole room’s freezing ’cause no bodies been in here yet to warm it awake and Cynthia’s not due up for another couple hours. That’s why this is my favorite part of the day. I dream about having my own quiet room one day. Not the house like Albert said, but after I marry Jeremy, it’ll be the room we’ll build together.

I sit in my favorite stool at the bar and rest my plate on yesterday’s paper. I keep it there like a placemat so I don’t ruin Sam’s good polishing. The newspaper letters are showing from under my plate. I pull the top page away. “Wanted,” it say. “Faunsdale Murder. Five hundred dollars.” It got a line-drawn picture of a negro man. Big nose, it got.

There’s chanting outside.

Tones like a song but more like a hum. I lean back on my stool. See out the window. Church people. Same ones that come most Sundays to have service. Young white women and one old one, too. All of ’em got

Bibles and babies and young children with ’em. Even the old one got a baby. This particular lot always comes before sunlight, telling us to burn in hell just after “amen.” But they don’t need to pray for me. I ain’t like these whores here. We’re alike in the way that all women are, but the root of us ain’t the same. They value things that ain’t worth nothin, throw away their lives for pretty things that Albert can melt down and burn up. They do what greedy women who want the easy way out do. Still trying to prove to their fathers that they was worth his love, after all. They have sex for money. But not money all the time. Free things, too. Gifts and special time. Time to be treated like somebody’s spoiled child. But in private, they earn every bit of it, trading their God-made bodies for man-made shit. Exchange their everlasting souls for combustibles. “Free ain’t never free,” Cynthia say.

But love is.

Like the kind me and Jeremy got.

Ours cain’t be bargained or paid for, it just is. Same way God is. He keeps me protected and above this place, shows me Hisself in the way I love Jeremy and the way Jeremy loves me. Keeps me outside their world but lets me wade through it.

So I ain’t worried about them church ladies.

I stand up in the side window so they can see me proud and I tie my apron around my waist, watch the sun rise and feel it on my face.

The ones outside are shouting now. Their children are doing what the grown ladies do, scrunching their faces like they hate this place. Hate me. The old lady picks up a rock, slings it at my window. It clicks against the glass.

She ushers all the children up the road and turns around a last time to spit. It dangles from her chin and she wipes it with the sleeve of her pretty dress.

She should forget about us.

She should save her foul mouth for smiles and kisses on her grandbaby ’cause what Cynthia and her ladies do here ain’t got nothin to do with her. It’s not my business so I’ll mind mine ’til me and Jeremy go. But for now, I’ll bide my time.

It’s my birthday today.

I ain’t told nobody but Jeremy. I reckon he’s gon’ come and surprise me with something special ’cause he like to do that. Maybe sing me my own song that he wrote just for me, and that way every time he play the tune, it’ll be him telling me he loves me, out loud to everybody, but only me and him know.