Chapter 34
“Welcome to the neighborhood.”
Johnnie was sitting in the breakfast nook of her kitchen, finishing an article about AT&T in the Wall Street Journal. The article chronicled AT&T’s past technological achievements. It went on to discuss the coming transatlantic telephone cable and the launching of an earth-orbit commercial communication satellite. When she finished reading, she thought about what Martin Winters told her about AT&T and how innovative the company was. Sipping a hot cup of New Orleans blend, the corners of her mouth turned up when she thought about the money she was going to make. Her smile became even broader when she thought about being in her own kitchen, in her own home. For some odd reason, her thoughts shifted to what Robert Simmons told her about her mother and Richard Goode.
Is she really that hard up for money? Or does she like the idea of beating the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan into submission? Is that what this is all about? Or maybe it’s some insane combination of the two. Maybe she’s hard up for money and she likes the idea of beating him. No, that can’t be true. She’s got about seven thousand dollars. It can’t be the money. Maybe she’s just greedy and cold-hearted. She had the money and still sold me to Earl. If she could do that, it could be plain ol’ greed. But what about the beatings? Why would she agree to that? Does beating him somehow excite her? I wonder. What am I racking my brain for? I could be thinking of a way to get Lucas over instead of dwelling on her and the weird things she does. I’ll never understand her.
Johnnie heard some light tapping on the glass of her back door. When she looked up, she saw Sadie Lane looking at her through the glass. Sadie lifted a sweet potato pie so Johnnie could see it. Johnnie took another swallow of her coffee and went to the door.
“Hi, Sadie. Come on in.”
“I hope I wasn’t disturbing you.”
“No, I was just doin’ some thinkin’.”
“I hope you like sweet potato pie,” she said, placing it on the table. “I promised myself to bring you one and welcome you to the neighborhood when you moved in. You sure it’s okay?”
“Yes. I could use some company, Sadie. Have a seat.”
Sadie sat down at the table. Johnnie went over to the sink and pulled a butter knife and plates from the dish rack.
“So, what do you do for a living, Johnnie?” Sadie asked when she returned with the knife.
Sadie suspected that the white man she’d seen her with that first day was her sugar daddy. Since Johnnie was only sixteen, Sadie also guessed that he was the one who purchased the house. She just wanted her suspicions confirmed.
“Nothing yet, but I plan to get a job as soon as I can,” Johnnie said, slicing the pie and placing a piece on each plate.
“Do you plan to work part-time after school, or what?” Sadie asked, attempting to ask personal questions as delicately as possible.
“I quit school, Sadie.”
“May I ask why?”
Do I tell her the real reason why I quit? She’ll probably think less of me if I do. “What good is it going to do me? When I graduate, what will I do then? Go to college? Even if I do that, what will I do afterwards?”
“There’s plenty you could do. The neighborhood is full of professionals, Johnnie.”
“Professional men, not women, Sadie.”
“Well, we do have some women teachers in the neighborhood. There’s also Lisa Cambridge, the owner of Cambridge Books and Publishing. And then there’s Beverly and Michael Addison, who own the bakery on Main Street.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, Sadie, but didn’t you say you were a maid the other day?”
Using her fork, Sadie took another piece of the pie and put it in her mouth. She was trying not to react negatively to Johnnie’s obvious antagonism to her suggestion of doing something with her life.
“Yes, I’m a maid, but you don’t have to be,” she said softly. “I guess I was hoping that you wouldn’t make the same mistakes that most black women make.”
“What mistakes?”
“Settling for second best. Or deeper still, taking what we can get instead of becoming who we really want to be. I wanted to be a choreographer, but I ended up working for the Mancinis in the Garden District, and here I am. Look at me, I’m twenty-nine years old and I’ve got three children by Santino Mancini.”
As Johnnie listened to her, she immediately felt a sort of kinship with Sadie. She wondered if this was something that happened to all black women. Are we all destined to become whores for the white man? What is it about us that makes him want us so bad?
“So, does Mr. Mancini pay for your home?”
“Yes. I assumed you were in the same boat with that white man I saw you with that day.”
“I am,” Johnnie said, suddenly ashamed.
“Well, I hope you’re using protection.”
“What do you mean, protection?”
“Johnnie, the last thing you want is to end up with that man’s children. If you do, you can forget about any of those lofty dreams you have. And don’t tell me you don’t have them. I know you do.”
“Lately I’ve been thinkin’ about becoming a stockbroker.”
“A stockbroker, huh?”
“Yes. Do you have any stocks in any of the major companies like Coke or Ford or General Motors?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes, and I think there’s a lot of money to be made doing it.”
Sadie shook her head in amazement, unable to believe how much further ahead Johnnie was in her thinking than she was at that age or even now. She laughed a little and said, “I came over here to give you some advice, but it seems as though you should be giving me advice.”
“Maybe we can advise each other, Sadie. I know a few things you don’t, and you obviously know some things I don’t.”
“Like what, Johnnie?”
“Like how to talk like white folks, for one. And two, what is this protection business?”
“You mean your mother never told you how not to get pregnant?”
Johnnie shook her head. She considered telling her how she and Earl came to know one another, but thought better of it.
“So, Marguerite never discussed the birds and the bees with you?”
“No, but I know some stuff that girls in school told me.”
“Did they tell you what prophylactics are?”
Johnnie shook her head. She felt stupid for not knowing what was obvious to Sadie. She wanted to ask her a thousand questions. Mama was right. Sadie is a woman I can learn a lot from. How can she be so right about people and at the same time be so wrong about everything else?
“Listen, Johnnie, anything you want to know, I’ll be glad to tell you. If you don’t mind being a maid until you become a stockbroker, I can probably get you a job with the Beauregards. They live next door to the Mancinis.”
Beauregards? Hmmm, I wonder if they’re related to the same Beauregard that my grandmother used to see. If so, I would love to meet the white side of the family and get to know them too. I could work for them and learn all about them, and they would never know who I am.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Sadie, but if you knew about protection, why didn’t you protect yourself from pregnancy?”
“I knew you were going to ask me that,” Sadie said, shaking her head slowly. “The first one was an accident. But after that, he wanted more children with me. Santino said he loved me and that he would take care of us for the rest of our lives. In other words, I took the easy way out. I just hope you do something different with your life. I haven’t had a real relationship in so long that I’ve practically given up on the idea. So, I just try to make the best of what I have with Santino until something better comes along. But then I think . . . who’s going to want me when I’ve got three kids to take care of? Besides, Santino would never let me go. He really does love me.”
“What is with these white men that they have to come to colored women for happiness?”
“It isn’t just the white men, Johnnie. The colored men are doin’ the same thing right here in Ashland Estates. When a man falls for a woman, I mean truly falls for a woman, he loves her for life, just like a woman. The trouble with men is most don’t truly fall in love with the women they marry.”
“Then why do they marry them, Sadie?”
“I don’t know, but I have a theory. You wanna hear it?”
“Yeah,” Johnnie said, feeling closer to her as the conversation progressed.
“I think men look for a woman they think is chaste and kind and a good homemaker, ignoring her sexual propensities. And when—”
“What does propensities mean?”
“Interests, or inclinations.”
“Oh, okay,” said Johnnie, looking at her with admiring eyes.
“What?” Sadie asked, wondering why she was looking at her like that.
“You’re so much smarter than I am. I mean, you know all these big words and stuff. I wish I could talk like you do. You know, talk white.”
“First of all, it isn’t talking white. It’s being able to speak the King’s English with proper diction.”
“You mean diction, as in dictionary?”
“No, I mean to use precise pronunciation. As for big words, all you need do is read. And when you come to words you don’t understand, don’t just keep reading in a futile attempt to understand them in the sentence. Take the time to develop a vocabulary of your own.”
“Okay, Sadie,” Johnnie said, feeling like a pupil with a new teacher who has taken a personal interest in her.
“Now, back to my theory. When a man marries a woman, he thinks very little about his sex life with her because she’s going to be the mother of his children. For that reason, he puts her on some pseudo throne that she doesn’t belong on. She wants sex just like he does but she can’t tell him that because the moment she does, he’ll look at her differently. Husbands often think their wives are simply giving into sex because he wants it. In many cases it’s true, but that’s only because she’s given up on ever being a liberated sexual being.”
“Sadie, you sho’ got a way with words.”
“Well, thank you. But if you ever start reading books, you’ll have a way with them too.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. Now, is there anything you want to know about sex, Johnnie?”
“Yes, but first I want you to help me get the job with the Beauregards. And could you . . . this is really kind of embarrassing, but can you tell me what a dildo is?”