The Healing by Jonathan Odell Read Free Book Online Page B

of the chair.
    But as Granada had hoped, it was her all eyes found first. She stood beaming at the mistress’s side, bedecked in the elegant blue satin gown and creamy patent-leather shoes, her hair greased, combed, and ribboned. The intoxicating scents of Miss Becky’s powders and perfumes rose off her skin.
    Mistress Amanda acknowledged her guests with a single nod and a vacant smile, while Granada competed by showing off her curtsy. To make sure no one doubted her abilities, she bowed with exaggerated flourish, thrusting her right foot forward and drawing back the left, at the same time dramatically plucking her skirt upward on either side like turkey wings. Her spare fingers stuck out stiff and straight.
    While she held the pose for the speechless guests, the monkey chittered frantically, scampering across the back of the chair, as if he were jealous of the attention. Granada remained outstretched in mid-curtsy, while the manic monkey leaped off the chair onto the girl’s back, causing her to totter. She struggled desperately, staggering about, flapping her arms to regain her balance.
    With mayhem erupting about her, Mistress Amanda sat rigidly erect, her eyes staring blankly before her, like a queen bored with her court jesters. Her only movement was a quick jerk of her head when she caught herself listing too far in one direction.
    Granada valiantly attempted to hold her curtsy, even with Daniel Webster bounding up and down on her shoulder, tugging on one of her plaits, and causing her to tilt considerably to one side. The girl peeked to note the reactions of the guests.
    The women had dropped their eyes to the floor, looking red-faced, as if they had been slapped in church, and the bald-headed man with a high stomach and eyebrows like furry caterpillars hid his mouth behind his hand and coughed loudly. Granada thought he might be strangling, but then she noticed his eyes. They danced with a wicked merriment. When she looked at the master, she saw that his cheeks were ablaze, and he was now talking rapidly to his guests, shunting them as best he could toward the pastries on the sideboard.
    Granada didn’t mind. They could be as mean and as jealous as they cared to, just like Aunt Sylvie. The girl was used to it. All Granada knew was that the immense gold-framed mirror on the wall before her proved a kindlier presence. It did not avert its gaze nor did it scorn her. It did not exclude Granada because her skin was darker than all the rest. In spite of the creature on her shoulder, the reflection showed Granada to be as beautiful as anybody in the room, and the mistress loved her best for it.
    Pomp broke the tension by lifting a tray of goblets from the sideboard and moving among the guests. “Drink, Master? Drink, Mistress?” he asked all around, proffering the silver tray.
    As the guests chitchatted, and Daniel Webster quit Granada’s shoulder for a higher perch on the marble mantel below Miss Becky’s smiling portrait, the girl knew that she had become invisible again. She took the opportunity to shift her weight from one foot to the other. The dead girl’s feet were too small and the shoes pinched Granada’s toes. When she first saw them earlier that morning, they had gleamed so, her heart nearly stopped. But now she would much prefer to have on the soft silvery slippers studded with tiny glass beads that she wore when Senator Davis came calling.
    Granada knew she was supposed to avert her eyes, but she couldn’t help stealing glances as more white folks entered the room and then stood about with their company manners, all stiff and formal, performing half bows, with their stifled laughs that sounded like coughs.
    More interesting than their words were the spaces they left between, the gaps of silence separating the speakers. They talked the way they danced at their fancy balls, holding each other at considerable distance. Nobody ever crowded in on top of another. They reminded Granada of cold pots in the