The Girl on the Outside by Mildred Pitts; Walter Read Free Book Online Page A

mother awakened her, she thought. Left her to sleep all that time. She was annoyed.
    It was almost ten o’clock and she hadn’t sewn a stitch. She must hurry if she was to finish her dress.
    Quickly she put on her clothes and swallowed a glass of fruit juice; it was too hot for food. She put up the sewing machine, wishing she could find a cool spot. But even outside, the sun had already invaded every bit of shade.
    After putting up the ironing board to press all the seams, she got busy threading the bobbin. As she watched the thread quickly fill the space, her mind was whirling fast from one thought to another. Tanya, hope she’s all right. Maybe Aunt Shirley’ll come by t’day. That Cecil! “… being white time.” She laughed. White gravy, ugh! Wonder what it’s gonna be like … with people I don’t know at all?
    Suddenly she realized that she had never eaten in the same place with white people in her life. Not in a cafe, at a soda fountain, in a home, at school … no place.
    She remembered the times she used to go into the drugstore downtown with her Grandma Collins for medicine. How many times she had seen people sitting with tall glasses of ice cream sodas, or frosty Cokes and dishes of sundaes. Her mouth would water.
    â€œGrandma, let’s git one of them in a tall glass,” she said one day.
    â€œYou don’t want that old ice cream,” her grandmother said. “That stuff’s not nearly as good as what we’ll make when we git home.”
    Now Eva threaded the machine, thinking how long it had taken her to learn what her grandmother didn’t have the heart to tell her: that she could not have ice cream at that counter simply because she was Negro.
    As she pressed open the stitched seams, she was thankful she did not have to wait for irons to heat like some people who still did not have electricity. Takes too long. And it’s too hot. Her mind again flashed to her grandmother. What would she think if she were alive?— her granddaughter going to Chatman and her son sitting behind the door with a great big shotgun .
    Eva could see her grandmother now as she used to look coming down the dusty road from working in people’s houses. Eva would rush to meet her and take the day-old newspaper and other packages her grandmother often brought: dresses, not new, but still good, and special goodies—lady fingers, chocolate cherries, and sometimes ham and cheese. Often, while Grandma Collins rested, Eva would read aloud to her the day-old news.
    Maybe her grandmother would not be scared. Then she remembered the first time she had seen Grandma Collins break down and cry. Her grandmother was worried because her youngest son, Eva’s Uncle Joe, had been put in jail, accused of stealing a diamond ring from a hotel room in which he had never been. Could someone accuse her like that at Chatman? She felt prickly with fear.
    Then Eva heard laughter and footsteps. She looked up and her Aunt Shirley and Tanya were at the door. Eva screamed with delight. “Oh, Aunt Shirley, you won’t believe it, but I was just thinking ’bout you and Grandma Collins.” She hugged Tanya. “And I was hoping you’d come home t’day.”
    â€œYou act like y’been ’way from each other a year, and it’s been no mo’en a day. What y’ thinkin’ ’bout me and y’ grandma?”
    â€œOh, just hoping you’d come by; and wondering what Grandma would think of my going to Chatman.”
    â€œShe’d probably be proud and scared. But she was one lady who stood up for what she b’lieved. Took no tea for the fever … wore no crepe for the dead. Really had a mind of her own.”
    â€œGrandma was a lotta fun, you know. Remember how she used to like to dance? She thought dancing released all the demons and left the body free and relaxed. She knew something about almost everything. Wish she was here