The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor Read Free Book Online

but I was always partial to dark-skinned men.”
    She brought the plates of food to the table, and while Mattie ate, Miss Eva insisted on feeding Basil. Mattie didn’t know if it was the seasoned food or the warm air in the kitchen, but she felt herself settling like fine dust on her surroundings and accepting the unexplained kindness of the woman with a hunger of which she had been unaware. In the unabashed fashion of the old, Miss Eva unfolded her own life and secret exploits to Mattie, and without realizing she was being questioned, Mattie found herself talking about things that she had buried within her. The young black woman and the old yellow woman sat in the kitchen for hours, blending their lives so that what lay behind one and ahead of the other became indistinguishable.
    “Child, I know what you talkin’ about. My daddy was just like that, too. I remember the night I ran off with my first husband, who was a singer. My daddy hunted us down for three months and then drug me home and kept me locked in my room for weeks with the windows all nailed up. But soon as he let me out, Virgil came back and got me, and we was off again.” She laughed heartily at the memory. “We joined the vaudeville circuit and went on stage. My daddy didn’t speak to me for years, but I couldn’t stay away from that Virgil. I was always partial to brown-skinned men.”
    Mattie was puzzled. “But I thought you said before that you were partial to—”
    “Ain’t it a fact.” Miss Eva’s face spread into a wicked grin. “Well, if the truth be told, I likes ’em all, but they don’t seem to agree with me—like fried onions. You like fried onions?I’ll make us some liver and fried onions for Sunday supper tomorrow.”
    “That would be nice, mam, but you haven’t told me yet what it’ll cost to stay here with our room and board.”
    “I ain’t runnin’ no boardinghouse, girl; this is my home. But there’s spare room upstairs that you’re welcome to, along with the run of the house.”
    “But I can’t stay without paying something,” Mattie insisted, “and with you offering to mind the baby, too—I can’t take advantage like that. Please, what will it cost?”
    “All right,” Miss Eva said, as she looked at the sleeping child in her arms, “I ain’t decided yet, but in time I’ll let you know.”
    Mattie was too sleepy to argue any further; she could hardly keep her eyes open. Miss Eva showed her to the bedroom upstairs, and Mattie was to die with the memory of the smell of lemon oil and the touch of cool, starched linen on her first night—of the thirty years of nights—she would spend in that house.
    And she lay down with her son and sank into a timeless sleep. Time’s passage through the memory is like molten glass that can be opaque or crystallize at any given moment at will: a thousand days are melted into one conversation, one glance, one hurt, and one hurt can be shattered and sprinkled over a thousand days. It is silent and elusive, refusing to be dammed and dripped out day by day; it swirls through the mind while an entire lifetime can ride like foam on the deceptive, transparent waves and get sprayed onto the consciousness at ragged, unexpected intervals.
IV
    Mattie got up Sunday morning to the usual banging and howling in the house on weekends. Miss Eva was in the kitchen fighting with the children.
    “Grandma, Basil broke my crayon. See, he bit it right inhalf—and on purpose!” Lucielia wailed.
    “Basil, you little red devil, come here! Can’t I cook breakfast in peace?”
    “But, Miss Eva, Ciel took my coloring book and she tore all the pages.”
    “I did not,” Ciel protested, and kicked him.
    Basil began crying.
    “Why, you evil, narrow-tailed heifer. I’ll break your neck!” And she smacked Ciel on the behind with her wooden cooking spoon.
    Basil stopped crying instantly in order to enjoy Ciel’s punishment. “Goody, goody.” He stuck out his tongue at her.
    “Goody, goody, on