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

you, Mister,” Miss Eva went after him with the spoon, “I ain’t forgot you broke my china poodle this morning.”
    Basil ducked under the table, knowing she wouldn’t be able to bend and reach him.
    “Want me to get him for you, Grandma?” Ciel offered, trying to get back into her good graces.
    “No, I just want you both out of my kitchen. Out! Out!” She banged on the table with the spoon.
    Mattie stood yawning in the kitchen door. “Can’t there be just one morning of peace and quiet in this house—just one?” Ciel and Basil both ran to her, each trying to outshout the other about their various injustices. “I don’t want to hear it,” Mattie sighed. “It’s too early for this nonsense. Now go wash up for breakfast—you’re still in pajamas.”
    “Didn’t you hear her? Now, get!” Miss Eva shouted and raised her spoon.
    The children ran upstairs. Eva smiled behind their backs and turned toward the stove.
    “Well, good morning,” Mattie said, and poured herself a cup of coffee.
    “Tain’t natural, just ’tain’t natural,” Miss Eva grumbled at the stove.
    “They’re only children, Miss Eva. All children are like that.”
    “I ain’t talking about them children, I’m talking ’bout you. You done spent another weekend holed up in this house and ain’t gone out nowhere.”
    “Now that’s not true. Friday night I went to choir practice, and Saturday I took Basil to get a pair of shoes and then took him and Ciel to the zoo. And last night I even went to a double feature at the Century, which is why I overslept this morning. That only leaves Sunday morning, Miss Eva, and there’s church today, and then I gotta go back to work tomorrow. So I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
    “What I’m talkin’ ’bout is that I ain’t heard you mention no man involved in all them exciting goings-on in your life—church and children and work. It ain’t natural for a young woman like you to live that way. I can’t remember the last time no man come by to take you out.”
    Mattie couldn’t remember either. There had been a bus ride with a foreman in the shipping department at her job, and she had gone out a few times with one of the ushers in her church—but that was last spring, or was it last winter?
    “Humph.” Mattie shrugged her shoulders and sipped her coffee. “I’ve been so busy, I guess I haven’t noticed. It has been a long time, but so what? I’ve got my hands full raising my son.”
    “Children get raised overnight, Mattie. Then what you got? I should know. I raised seven and four of my grand and they all gone except Ciel. But I’m an old woman, my life’s most over. That ain’t no excuse for you. Why, by the time I was your age, I was on my second husband, and you still slow about gettin’ the first.”
    “Well, Miss Eva, I’d have to had started twenty years ago to beat your record,” Mattie kidded.
    “I ain’t making no joke, child.” And her watery eyes clouded over as she stared at the younger woman. Mattie knew that look well. The old woman wanted a confrontation and would not be budged. “Ain’t you ever had no needs in that direction? No young woman wants an empty bed, year in and year out.”
    Mattie felt the blood rushing to her face under Miss Eva’s open stare. She took a few sips of coffee to give herself time to think. Why didn’t she ever feel that way? Was there really something wrong with her? The answers were beyond her at that moment, but Miss Eva was waiting, and she had to say something.
    “My bed hasn’t been empty since Basil was born,” she said lightly, “and I don’t think anyone but me would put up with the way that boy kicks in his sleep.”
    As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. This was an ancient battle between the two women.
    “Basil needs a bed of his own. I been telling you that for years.”
    “He’s afraid of the dark. You know that.”
    “Most children are afraid at first, but they get used to