“Are you okay, baby?” Granny asked from the door of my bedroom. This was probably the hundredth time she’d asked me. It was early Thursday morning, and she and I hadn’t long got home from Miss Lovenia’s house. Miss Lovenia had gotten one of her sons to bring us home in their Model T car. Granny still wasn’t ready to explain our absence to the family. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation, either, especially since I couldn’t remember anything yet. Miss Lovenia said it was because I hit my head so hard on the rock, it caused my memories to get thrown out of whack. She also said God sometimes protects us from the truth until we are well enough to handle it.
“Baby, did you hear me?” Granny called out again. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yessum, I’m fine,” I said, sitting up some to show her I was feeling better.
She smiled. “All right then. Make sure you finish drinking that tea I put by your bedside earlier. Miss Lovenia said it would help that knot at the back of your head to go away and help out with the pain. I’ll check back with you later.” She crept back out the room.
I let myself slump back down on my pillow. I hoped she went somewhere to sit down and rest, but knowing Granny, she was probably just pacing the floor till she could come back to check on me again.
Of course, I wasn’t fine. I was still pretty banged up, and I still couldn’t figure out who had hurt me. I knew somebody roughed me up, and I could remember the hands being white, but that’s about all I remembered. Miss Lovenia said my not remembering was a blessing from God. I didn’t know about all of that, but I had to admit, in some way, I was happy I couldn’t put a face to all of this. I didn’t really want to know that somebody I had to see on a regular basis had done something awful like beat me up. Granny said I was blessed that the man didn’t have his way with me. I was thankful for that too. I’d heard stories of Colored girls getting raped by white men. I said several thank-yous to God for sparing me from that. When I mentioned it to Miss Lovenia, she said her boys might have scared him off, or maybe he got scared when he saw me black out from hitting my head on the rock.
“Whatever the reason, we shall give thanks,” she finally said, and that was good enough for me.
For the last few days, Granny and Miss Lovenia had hardly left my side, making sure I didn’t overdo it. Miss Lovenia kept giving me different teas to drink. One tea she made out of pennyroyal. It didn’t taste bad like some of the other things she had me drinking. It had a minty taste to it. She said it would help my headache. And, to my surprise, it did.
“Everything we ever need to heal ourselves grows out of God’s good earth,” Miss Lovenia said. She’d also made a poultice out of burdock leaves for the swelling and bruising on my face, arms, and legs. “After a few days, won’t nobody even be able to tell you got them bruises.”
But I’ll be able to tell, I thought. Even when those bruises have faded away to nothing, I’ll remember them. Every one of them. And I’ll remember that somebody hated me enough to beat me for no reason other than my skin was a dark shade of brown. Or at least that was all I could come up with to explain the treatment I had received.
I heard a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I said, knowing it was Granny. Sure enough, it was her, but her face looked worried.
“Opal, that Parsons gal is outside. Jimmy Earl must have told her what happened,” Granny said. “You want me to tell her you don’t want no company?”
I paused for a moment. A part of me wanted to see her just to have someone to see, but the other part of me didn’t want to be bothered, especially with me being bruised in the face still. Finally, I decided maybe it would be best for me to talk to her and see what she wanted and to make sure she didn’t tell anybody what had happened to me.
“Tell her to come in. At least for a little bit.”
“I’ll go get that gal, but don’t let her tire you out,” she said, and then she bent down and kissed my forehead. “I’ll give you a minute or two to get yourself pulled together.”
I watched as Granny walked out, and I looked around my little room. It wasn’t fancy. Miss Peggy had made me some lacy yellow curtains for my windows, but other than that, it was pretty plain. This was my uncles’ bedroom when they were growing up (I had refused to sleep in the room that had been my mama’s), and I hadn’t changed too much about it. Lucille had asked me several times if I wanted to redo the room so it was more fitting to my personality, but to be honest, I didn’t know what that even meant. So I just always said no. And because I spent so much of my time at Miss Peggy’s house, it just didn’t seem like a good use of my time trying to make this bedroom feel “more like me,” as Lucille put it. But now, with Miss Lori Beth Parsons about to enter my room, I wished I had listened to Lucille and at least tried to make it a little less like my uncles’.
I reached up and touched my hair. It was all over my head. I smoothed it down as best I could and fluffed up my bed coverings some. All that motion made my headache come back full strength. I reached on the table for one of the BC Powders Granny had left for me. I opened the packet, leaned my head back, and let the fine white powder slide into my mouth. I swallowed the bitter powder and washed it down with the rest of the tea that was on my nightstand. I was trying to wipe the powder from my mouth when Miss Lori Beth walked in. She was wearing a pair of yellow trousers and a crisp white shirt. I wondered what Granny thought about Miss Lori Beth’s outfit. She didn’t have anything good to say about girls and women wearing pants. I watched as Miss Lori Beth Parsons hurried over and sat down in the chair beside my bed.
“Oh, Opal, I am so . . . I am so . . . ,” she uttered, and then she started crying. I was shocked. I didn’t even know Miss Lori Beth Parsons that well. I didn’t understand why she was taking on so. I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat there in the bed real quiet while she sniffled and took long breaths. “Oh, I’m a mess,” she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out this dainty-looking handkerchief. She dabbed at her face and then put the handkerchief back inside her purse. “Opal, I didn’t mean to take on so. Just, seeing you there all bruised and bandaged up, well, I can’t believe someone would do this to you.”
She just kept going on and on. I tried to peer at her face to see if she was being serious or if she was making fun of me, but the more I stared and the more she talked, the clearer it became that she was serious.
“Hearing you had been hurt, Opal, was, well, it was scary to hear because it could have happened to me as well, considering all the times I’m out riding alone,” she said.
I almost said, “No, it wouldn’t have happened to you because you’re Lori Beth Parsons, not some nobody from Colored Town,” but I didn’t. I just made myself listen to the rest of what she had to say.
“I took Jimmy Earl’s grandmother some fabric this morning,” she said. “My mother wasn’t going to use it, so I told her it might help with the quilting circle. I was shocked when Jimmy Earl told me what happened to you on the day you and he were taking me home. He said not to tell anyone, and I haven’t, but I just had to come and see you for myself. Opal, I feel totally responsible. Had you not been trying to help get me home, this might not have ever happened,” she said. She looked like she might start crying again.
In the words of my granny, I was fit to be tied over Jimmy Earl telling this girl what had happened to me. He had no right. Here we were trying to keep this a secret from my family, and he just hauled off and told this silly young white girl all of my business. Right then, even as bad as I was feeling, I could have marched downtown to Mr. Lowen’s Drugstore and given Jimmy Earl Ketchums a piece of my mind.
“It’s not your fault, Miss Lori Beth,” I finally said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “Whoever did this to me didn’t do it because of you.” It’s funny how I was the one hurt, but she was carrying on like the wrong had been done to her. I didn’t doubt that she felt bad for me. It just rankled me a little that I had to comfort her instead of it being the other way around.
“You’re being nice. So very nice, Opal. Thank you. But please, please call me Lori Beth,” she said. “I’m no different from you. Just a girl.”
I couldn’t believe she said that. Again. Sitting there in all of her white glory. Smart as a whip. Me and Miss Lori Beth were nothing alike. The only things I knew about for sure was cooking and cleaning up behind white folks. I didn’t know a thing about the places she had talked about the other day when Jimmy Earl and I were taking her home. I didn’t even know what direction someone would head if they wanted to go to New York or Chicago or “merry ole England,” as she had called it. Being around her just made me feel awkward and clumsy and stupid. Suddenly, the only thing I wanted her to do was to leave.
“Opal, are you going to tell the police what happened to you? Jimmy Earl said he didn’t think so, but I just wanted to urge you to report this. Whoever did this to you needs to be caught and punished.” She spoke with such righteous passion, I almost laughed out loud, but I knew it would just make my head hurt. I couldn’t believe how simpleminded she and Jimmy Earl were acting. Didn’t no law care about what happened to us Colored folks. And even if they did, telling on the folks who burnt down Granny’s chicken coop or who beat me up real bad would only make things worse. Them KKKers would come after us for sure then. So I tried to explain things to her like I was talking to a child.
“Miss Lori Beth, I’m all right. Didn’t nobody get killed or nothing. My aches and pains are getting better. We just gone have to watch ourselves more careful now. That’s all,” I said. “And anyway, don’t none of my kin, besides Granny, know what happened to me. It’s best if we just let this go.”
“You’re just going to pretend like nothing happened?” she asked, her eyes stretched wide. “What about other girls? What if the man who did this to you hurts somebody else like me or some other girl? How would you live with yourself? Please . . . think about what you’re saying, Opal.”
“Miss Lori Beth, I ain’t pretending nothing happened, but I ain’t pretending the law or anybody else will side with me, a Colored girl, who don’t even remember who did this to her,” I said. “I just want my head to stop hurting so me and my granny can get back to work at Miss Peggy’s. That’s all I want.”
“Please call me Lori Beth,” she said, then her face changed. She looked so excited, almost like a sunburst about to pop. You’d think she didn’t even hear a word I said. “Opal, why don’t I take your picture and run an article in the newspaper? Father said I could write about anything I wanted. Why not write about this atrocity that happened to you? Why, any young girl could have gotten assaulted that day, white or Colored. Let me at least do that.” Her face was all lit up with excitement, but all I felt was panic as she started rummaging in her bag.
“Miss Lori Beth, your daddy’s paper ain’t never gonna run no stories ’bout Colored folks. It ain’t that kind of paper,” I said, trying to reason with her. “And what happened to me wouldn’t have happened to a white girl. It just wouldn’t have.”
She pulled out the camera from her bag. “You can’t know that, Opal. Danger isn’t out there for just the Colored folks of Parsons. And as far as the paper goes, it should be about everybody who lives in our town, white and Colored. And it definitely should tell the citizens of this town when one of its fellow citizens has been wrongly injured like you have been. Oh, Opal, I don’t want to write about quilting circles and Founder’s Day celebrations. I want to write about things that matter. And this matters.”
I didn’t hardly know what to say. I knew I had to stop her. All I could see was my badly bruised face sitting up on the front page of that paper of her daddy’s, and the Klan burning down all of Colored Town because of it. “No, Miss Lori Beth. That wouldn’t be a good idea for you to do a story about what happened to me,” I said. “I can’t let you do that.”
“But, Opal, this is the least I can do. Please let me tell your story.” She reasoned with the innocence of someone who didn’t know a thing about the world we both lived in. Her version of the world was all black and white, right and wrong. Mine was every shade of gray you could imagine, where right and wrong only existed for the whitest members of the world. Before I could say anything else, she had the camera pointed at me. She was ready to take my picture when my granny came bursting into the room. She stepped in between me and Miss Lori Beth, blocking her line of sight to take the picture.
“No ma’am. There will be no pictures, and there will be no stories written in white folks’ newspapers about what happened to my Opal,” Granny said. Granny had complained of her arthritis earlier that day, but right then she was standing tall and firm and unbending.
“But ma’am, I just want to let folks know what happened. I—”
Granny interrupted. “You think folks around here don’t know about such as this, Miss Lori Beth? Negroes have known from the second they took their first breath that white folks can’t be trusted. You think writing about my Opal in some newspaper is going to make things better? The only thing you will do is get my grandbaby killed. Like I said, there will be no pictures and no stories.” She turned and looked at me and then back to Miss Lori Beth. “Judging from the looks of my Opal, she is tired. So I think you should go now.” She stepped aside so I could see Miss Lori Beth again. She had put her camera back into her bag, and the sadness had returned to her face again. I felt sorry for her. I knew her heart was in the right place. She just didn’t understand how things were.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to help,” she said, tears falling down her face.
I watched Miss Lori Beth walk out the room. Her shoulders were slack and stooped. Like somebody who’d just been beaten in a terrible battle of wills. For a time, neither my granny nor I said anything. We both just kept staring at the door Miss Lori Beth had just left from. Finally, Granny turned back toward me.
“Granny, do you ever think there will be a time when Colored and white folks can just be friends?” I asked. “Like you and Miss Peggy?”
“Me and Miss Peggy are as close to friends as any Colored and white person can be, but even that has its limit,” Granny said. “I love Miss Peggy, but I also know that she is my boss before she is my friend.”
“It shouldn’t be that way,” I said.
Granny came and sat beside me on the bed. “There are a lot of things in life that shouldn’t be,” she said.
I nodded. All of this was way too much, so I closed my eyes, feeling safe just having my granny sitting beside me as I drifted off to sleep.