She wiggled out from underneath the weight of his arm. “But I don’t want to have a baby and live here.” They had talked about her passing up north, in order to get a teaching job that would support them through his medical school. She’d make twice as much money as a White teacher than as a Negro one. Teaching wasn’t her dream, but it was better than the service jobs most of their classmates would begin by summer’s end.
Richard was upset at first by her mention of passing, until he learned she’d never considered crossing over. Passing for convenience in Charlotte or for financial reasons was one thing, but integrating oneself into the White world meant isolation. Among other losses, she’d never be able to see her mother again.
Even when she and Lillian used to tell their stories, Mary always saw herself marrying a Colored man and having Colored children one day. That’s why she never told Richard about Lillian and those Sundays in Charlotte, or that she passed now occasionally—and with Hazel, no less.
“Why not?” He crossed his arms. He was daring her to admit that staying wasn’t good enough. “Get your degree and teach here. Negro children right down here in the South need good teachers too.”
“We planned to move north!”
He lurched off the steps. “Opportunity beyond the South is a farce. That’s what’s wrong with Negroes now, always discounting what we do have. They don’t want us here but they don’t want us up there either. They aren’t going to run me away from my home.”
“But you’re letting them run you away from your dreams.”
“How is owning a business not a dream worth having?”
“Because it’s never been yours.”
“My father wants to give me his business. I can’t say no.” He walked to the door. “I’m going to meet everyone at the football field. I don’t imagine you’d want to come with your face looking like that.”
The screen door shut before she could answer.
Mary vomited in the grass of their chicken-wire-fenced backyard before she could make it to the outhouse. The root of truth in the pit of her stomach said she wasn’t sure she still wanted Richard to propose; his overnight abandonment of his dreams made her unsure about hitching her wagon to his. She’d dismissed her aspirations of acting for reasons of practicality but feared that Richard’s relinquishing his own would make him bitter. More than one woman in Cottonwood warned, A man without a dream isn’t one worth having. Even Adelaide complained about the mood swings of the gentle Lefred, whose aspirations of fighting in World War I had ended with an assignment as a cook for its entirety.
Mary couldn’t sleep thinking about Richard, even with the luxury of having the bed to herself. He knew Hazel was working an overnight and should have come to apologize after he cooled off.
When the frogs and owls started their symphony, she went to the kitchen to make coffee. She’d been sitting in the dark for an hour, waiting for her mother, when she heard the bus roll down the street.
Her mother was carrying the pink BabyCakes bakery box Mary knew all too well. Seeing Mary through the screen door, Hazel spoke. “What are you doing up?”
Mary pushed the door open for her. The air felt cool and wet, customary for early summer mornings before the humidity absorbed the dew. “I couldn’t sleep.” She didn’t want to tell her why.
Mary’s decision to stay in Winston for another four years had disappointed her mother. Hazel blamed Richard, but really, it was Hazel’s loss of weight and hair that had made Mary rethink even applying for colleges outside of Winston. She’d gained a considerable amount of weight over the last few years and then lost it suddenly. Now she complained about her aching bones.
The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong beyond her nerves. When Hazel’s hair got too patchy to cover with pressed hair, Mary went to Charlotte to buy two wigs: one for work and one for church.
Hazel set the cake box on the wooden butcher block they used as a counter. “For your graduation, I assume.”
“That’s nice of her.”
Hazel grunted. She had a moiling relationship with Mrs. Lakes, grateful and resentful all at the same time. Mary knew better than to incite her further with a reply.
“Remember, we have dinner at the Collinses’ tonight,” Mary reminded her mother.
“Have to work.” Hazel pulled at the bodice of her gray uniform; her back was wet with sweat.
“Couldn’t someone else watch them breathe?” Mr. and Mrs. Lakes had been in poor health for years, with little to no contact with any of their children. The Lakeses had nurses but trusted Hazel more; she slept there most nights now.
“Stop that.” As much as Hazel griped about her employers, she tried to temper her daughter’s feelings. They’re your kin, and hating them means you’ll end up hating a little of yourself too.
Mary used to wonder if she’d be named in their will. Her grandmother’s cakes were proof of her sentimentalities toward her, but considering how the Lakeses refused to support Mary beyond her mother’s pay, which afforded them hardly anything, she had lost optimism for their goodwill.
“You’re going to have to spend some time with them before the wedding,” Mary said.
Hazel scoffed. “Not if I can help it.” She didn’t care for Richard’s mother, who wore her Sunday best even to the grocery store. Always trying to remind people of how much money she has. She was the only able-bodied woman in Cottonwood who didn’t work; her claim to fame was the book club she hosted every month. Not once had she invited Hazel. Though she couldn’t have gone anyway, on a Thursday night, Hazel thought it was rude not to extend the offer to the woman who was feeding her son every week.
“You like Richard, don’t you?”
“I like him fine.”
Mary sighed. “Momma, we’ve been going steady for two years.”
Hazel pulled at her girdle. “So he deserves your whole life?”
“He’s a good man, Momma.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She limped into the bedroom, leaving Mary contemplating whether to tell her about Richard’s plans to take over the janitorial business. She decided against it, though it was bound to come out soon. Telling Hazel would make it feel permanent.
Hazel returned in her long teal housecoat that zipped up the front, and handed Mary an envelope. “Your graduation gift.”
It was a train ticket to Los Angeles. Mary was suspicious—she had never shared her dream of going West with anyone. “Why Los Angeles?”
“Catherine wrote me. Lillian’s living there now.”
Mary was surprised to hear their names. It had been four years, and Lillian had never written or called. “Doing what?”
“Working at a film studio.”
Mary felt several things she couldn’t name. “Doing what?”
“See for yourself. She wants you to come visit.”
Hazel pulled a picture from an envelope. In it, Lillian wore a white, wide-brimmed hat and a tailored mid-length blue dress that made her body blend into the sky. Her dark hair looked thick and bouncy and blew in the wind as she pretended to bite into an airy glob of cotton candy. Behind her was a Ferris wheel, and beyond it, the ocean seemed to go on forever.
Mary had never seen the ocean in person before. The closest beach to Winston was four hours away, but they wouldn’t have gone anyway. The coastal cities didn’t permit Negroes on the beach, even while in service.
“She’s gotten real cute, hasn’t she?” Hazel said.
Mary couldn’t see Lillian’s face well underneath her hat. She’d never considered whether Lillian was attractive or unattractive until Hazel made the comparison between them one year after showing Adelaide their Christmas picture. She has a lot of face, huh?
Adelaide had hollered. What does that even mean? Hazel had a wickedly dry sense of humor, the type of wit likely to incite a laughing fit at a funeral.