“Watch your step,” I said as we descended the steps from the porch, warning her not so much about the steps, but about the drops of chicken poop scattered throughout the backyard.
Ophelia fanned herself with her hand as we walked the path to the toilet. Her makeup had begun to glisten with sweat. “It’s so hot down here,” she said. “How do you stand it?”
“It ain’t hot in Saint Louis?” I asked.
“Not this hot,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead.
Before we even reached the toilet, its odor attacked the air and wiped out the sweet scent of Ophelia’s perfume. She wrinkled her nose. “Good God, that thing stinks,” she said.
“It’s a toilet,” I said. “It’s supposed to stink.”
Ophelia laughed a throaty laugh. She pointed at our outdoor toilet and said, “That nasty thing is not a toilet. A toilet is inside a house. A toilet gets flushed after it’s used. And it smells like pine after we clean it.” She laughed again and said, “That filthy thing is an outhouse.”
I balled my right hand into a fist. But I quickly mustered all the strength I could find to relax it before it slammed into Ophelia the Ogre’s ugly face.
While she stood there laughing, her face uglier than it was before, I unhooked the latch and yanked open the toilet door. “Go ahead. Use it.”
She covered her nose with her hand. “I don’t have to use it. I just wanted to see what it looked like.”
I planted my hands on my hips and gave her a dirty look. “You had me walk out here in this heat for nothing?”
Still shielding her nose from the stench, Ophelia nodded and said, “I’ve heard about these things, and I wanted to see one for myself.”
After that, I really wanted to punch her in that big ugly nose she was guarding. Instead, I slammed the toilet door, hooked the latch in place, and stormed back toward the house. I couldn’t believe I was missing important conversation in the parlor just to show some ungrateful northern spectator what an outside toilet looked like.
While I had been outside giving city Ophelia an education on country living, someone had been out to Aunt Belle’s car and returned with two large shopping bags.
“Since your birthday is coming up,” Aunt Belle said to Queen, “and you’re turning sixteen, I thought pantsuits would be perfect for you. Especially with the way you’ve filled out.”
Pantsuits! Aunt Belle brought us pantsuits! Just like the fancy one Ophelia was wearing.
When Aunt Belle began pulling the bright-colored outfits out of the bag, Queen squealed. “I’ll be the only girl in school with pantsuits from the city,” she said, beaming.
“Probably the only girl in pantsuits at all,” Aunt Belle added.
Papa cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. But Ma Pearl threw up her hands and cried, “Lawd, if that NAACP mess don’t git y’all sent straight to hell, wearin’ them pantses sho’ will.”
Aunt Belle handed the two bags to Queen. “Here. I don’t need to pull them all out in front of everybody. Take these on to the back and try ’em on.”
When she handed the bags to and directed her statement at Queen, and Queen only, my heart stopped beating for a few seconds, then started back up again. Seeing all the fashionable pantsuits she had brought for Queen, I thought it was only right to ask her if she brought me anything. Maybe someone had neglected to bring them from the car.
“Did you bring me anything?” I asked.
Aunt Belle’s head jerked up, and she eyed me strangely. Then she looked at Ma Pearl. Then back at me. “Rose Lee, honey, Mama said you wouldn’t be needing any school clothes.” She looked at Ma Pearl again, her mouth slightly open.
Ma Pearl nodded. “That’s right. She ain’t going back to school.”
My chest tightened as “What?” slipped quietly from my lips.
“You heard me,” Ma Pearl said. “You won’t be going to no school. You finished seventh grade. That’s more’n you need already.”
“Ma Pearl—”
“What you need mo’ schooling for?” She narrowed her eyes. “You strong. You can work with yo’ hands. And Papa go’n need you to pick cotton anyway, with Albert ’n’em gone.”
My heart pounding, I turned to Papa. “Can’t you get somebody else to help with the cotton? What about Slow John?”
Ma Pearl’s eyes bucked. “That fool? He ain’t go’n work for nobody.”
Monty, with an expression just as perplexed as mine, chimed in. “This child’s absence from school is only until the cotton has been picked, correct?”