Sugar by Bernice McFadden

in disgust. All except Pearl were disgusted at the very fact that she would begin a statement of such magnitude and then forgo it to massage a bunion. Pearl, on the other hand, was disgusted that Clair was massaging her bunion right at her kitchen table.
    “Well . . . what they say?” Minnie asked after the quiet and the lack of information began to take hold of her neck like a suffocating grip.
    “Hmmm.” Clair Bell looked up from her feet. Her face and eyes always retained somnolent characteristics, and she yawned, suggesting that it was more than a look.
    “Gibson. What did he say?” Shirley pushed, leaning in closer.
    “Say ’bout who?” Clair Bell was truly lost.
    They all exhaled loudly. Shirley sat back and crossed her arms over her sagging breasts and rolled her eyes up in the air in disgust. Minnie shook her head in dismay and turned to look at Pearl.
    “What did Gibson say about the woman Sugar,” Minnie said slowly, making sure she left time and space between each word so that Clair Bell could fully grasp what she was trying to say.
    “Oh . . .” Clair Bell stopped and tilted her head slightly upward, searching the air for the words she needed, and then very calmly she said: “He said she a whore.”
    There were just hearts. Hearts beating loud and excitedly, and finally they all remembered to breathe.
    It was said; the damage was done. Clair Bell went back to her bunion untethered by the excitement her words caused.
    “Oooh wee! Hot dang! I knew it! Right here in Bigelow . . . a whore! Lawdy, Lawdy!” Shirley’s eyes sparkled behind her thick lenses.
    Pearl’s mouth was slightly open in disbelief and Minnie was holding her stomach and laughing loudly.
    “You got the whore of Babylon right next door . . . and you call her friend.” The word friend came out slick as blood. “Running ’round town with her like ya’ll was cut from the same cloth. What you think about her now?” Shirley was pointing a crooked accusatory finger in Pearl’s face.
    “Take your finger outta my face.” The words moved out of Pearl’s mouth like steel pellets, her face turned to ice, her glare moved from Shirley and fell hard on Clair Bell. “That’s a terrible thing to say ’bout someone. You spreading rumors, and that ain’t right. How you fix your mouth to say such a thing? You don’t even know her.” Pearl’s chest was rising and falling quickly as she struggled to take in and release air. Her heart was beating wild with anger. But her mind stepped back to a hot, heavy day when the sun refused to shine and field peas lay in waiting on the kitchen table between herself and Sugar. She remembered the questions she asked about Sugar’s life and the answer she got: “I cleaned up in a women’s home.” The words echoed false in her mind, just as they did when Sugar first uttered them aloud. Pearl ignored the warning bells that went off in her soul.
    Clair Bell raised her eyes to Pearl’s and smiled a little. “I ain’t sayin’ it, I’m repeatin’ it . . . there’s a difference.” She said this in the small childlike voice that was characteristic of Clair Bell, but the usual innocence it carried was gone. Challenge took its place.
    Pearl lowered her eyes and then raised them again. She placed the cards face down on the table and got up curtly. Tears stung at her eyes as she turned her back to the women and peered out the window. “It ain’t right no matter how you put it. You don’t know that girl from Adam and here you are dragging her name through the mud based on hearsay. Ya oughta be ashamed!”
    Who was she to protect Sugar and why should she? Didn’t Jesus protect the whore by asking those who were without sin to throw the first stone? Pearl questioned herself and her actions. How much did she really know about Sugar? Not much, when you got right down to the nitty-gritty of things. Sugar hardly spoke and when she did it wasn’t about anything that had to do with her directly. She spoke in