Natashia Deon - Grace

“You two was friends?” Josey ask.

“Annie treated me better than any of the other slaves. . always. We got into so much mischief together, found trouble wherever it be. If mudslinging was part of any game, we’d play it first. Her Momma used to come out and say, ‘Annabelle Brown! You don’t have no place in the mud with her.’ A negro and a white. Unnatural how close we was. But nobody could keep us apart. Did a spit handshake to prove we was loyal. Best friends forever.

“Before we knew it, we was women. Sixteen and it was time for us to marry. Annie asked her momma if I could be her help to get her dressed and ready for courting. But Lord knows all we did was gossip and drink her daddy’s stole liquor.

“We both married at the same time, was both trying to get pregnant at the same time, too. Wanted our babies to be best friends like we was. And even when my Paul passed on, I still had hopes for Annie. We were still gon’ have a baby.

“But Annie wasn’t getting pregnant. Months to years, then that knock met our door that night — the evening the night man, Bobby Lee, came to our door.

“You were her prize. She wanted to do everything for you herself. Y’all ate at the table together, she taught you to write at two years old. You was already sewing beads on dresses by then. She’d praise you more than she shoulda, gave you more than she shoulda. Spared the rod even when you was breaking things, knocking things over, couldn’t keep a room clean if you was in it. You were the reason Annie pushed me away. You left me with nothing except Annie’s trust.

“It’s why she listened when I tol’ her what that night man had done to her. I was the one that saved her from kissing that black baby on the mouth. From the ridicule of this world. From them good people that despise nigger-lovers more than sin itself. But it wasn’t them that Annie ended up loathing. It was me. I could see it in her eyes every time she looked at me after I accused you of being a negro. Eventually, she put me out like garbage.

“But I wasn’t gon’ let it end with me. . no. And I’m sorry for it now. Sorry for what happened to you. ’Cause I’m the one who made sure rumors got spread. Didn’t want to give Annie a chance to lie and hide it. I made her confront what you did to us.

“Her husband Richard had to finish the matter when Annie couldn’t. He gave you away to Charles and soon your memories of Annie got erased. That was Annie’s fear come true. You quit asking for Annie-Momma. You only wanted Charles-Momma to hold you and feed you and teach you. And Annie was heartbroke from being Forgot-Momma. Alone-Momma. But I wasn’t gon’ be alone by myself. And now I got you.”

Sissy stops rocking.

“People need people,” she say.

Josey wipes her hands down her apron. She goes to Sissy and kneels down next to her chair. “If all we got is each other,” Josey say. “Let us be family once and for all.”

BAND MUSIC WHINES through here for her party. “A celebration!” Cynthia called it. “Bat Mitzvahed!” she said. “My old ass has come of age!”

I think that means it’s her birthday.

For certain it’s a fancy way to have a barbecue.

I imagine a diamond looks like this brothel.

A jewel, clear-white and sparkly. Cynthia took the whole week to clean this room out and wash it down. The thrown-away things she changed for white tablecloths, white candles, sheer white curtains, and the floor shines. We could be on the ring finger of Georgia.

Cynthia’s boy, Johnny, had a real birthday last week. Ten years old. When he saw me from the hall just now, he came running at me like I been gone for days somewhere. He hugged my neck and grabbed my head two-handed, pressed his lips on my cheek and a burst of slobber cooled there.

I love spit kisses.

They’re made by folks with a reckless kinda love inside of ’em.

Cynthia started letting Johnny come in the saloon more often. She said she marking the beginning of their fresh start. But he’s still careful with his permission, it’s why he went after his kiss and I shuffled his red hair.

Cynthia paid a rabbi’s son to teach her Hebrew and give her classes. She said she paid him for every vowel and every letter she learned. Cash money under the table and just between the two of ’em, ’cause girls ain’t supposed to learn. She told Sam she did it ’cause she “Can’t believe this body is all there is to me. I’m more than what feels good and makes me happy.”

Bullshit is what Sam called it but said he respected her decision anyway. Then reminded her she’s a woman of science.

“Exactly,” she said. “Emphasis on biology. Living’s a disaster with a hundred percent fatalities. None of us survive this. Maybe science should be more interested in known theories of what does. I chose this one.”

She’s completed her courses the way the boys do. It’s why she got her wedding dress on to party in her own honor and only invited the people she like: fifty customers, and less than half her staff. So everybody’s walking in and out here like they special. Chosen.

The ones outside are standing around the barbecue pit looking in it like Jesus is about to rise from the ashes. The only stranger here is the big white man guarding the door, asking Cynthia who can come in and who cain’t.

Bobby Lee and his two cousins have already been by two times. Got kicked out once. It wasn’t a mistake that they never got invitations. When they first came to the door, the guard said, “Cynthia. .”

She stopped dancing to see who was at the door. That’s when Bobby Lee took his hat off to show her it was him. “Only Bobby Lee can come in,” she said. “This is a private party and his cousins don’t wash their asses. I only want to smell barbecue pieces, not Henry’s creases.”

Since his cousins couldn’t come, too, Bobby Lee wouldn’t, neither. He put his hat back on and turned down the steps while his grumbling cousins put their middle fingers in the air.

Cynthia’s twirling around the dance floor now, grinding her hips like she got something to sell, even though the invitations say her girls ain’t working today. Maybe not ever. So they stand around the room in their party clothes, free.

This piano stool still feels like Jeremy’s spot even though he’s months gone and his piano’s been covered in a white sheet. Cynthia keeps her mail on top of it now and Sam keeps stacking it there, too. Sometimes he try to make her talk about what’s in the unopened envelopes, but she never do. A lot of ’em from the government.

This whole place has been decorated since yesterday but I put pink flower vases on all the tables this morning ’cause nobody would be able to see the small lit candles burning since it’s day. We took down the dark curtains and let the light come in bright and clean like this ain’t Cynthia’s saloon. Even the mahogany wood chairs look pine from the sunshine. The smell of liquor’s been traded for lavender. Streamers run down the walls, baby blue and white. At the top are paper-cutout stars, pulled open to a ball.

White men, dressed a little better than customers, make up the band at the front of the room tooting horns, twanging banjos, and sliding harmonicas. Except one man. He holds a wide-bellied bottle, got his top lip capped over the mouth of it, blowing. His deep base hums and gets everybody’s fast feet stomping including Cynthia’s.

In the middle of the room, tables and most of the chairs have been pushed away leaving space for Cynthia to throw herself this way and that way, dancing alone but wild in her wedding dress. Her hair that was all pinned up this morning’s been danced loose on the sides, parting her unbleached strands, showing it brown underneath.