Sugar by Bernice McFadden Page B

don’t shut your mouth and let the man tell the story!” someone would hiss.
    “I believes her name was Shirley Brown. Don’t know where she at now, or if she even still alive. But back then she was just a young thing, barely thirteen years old from what I hear,” the storyteller would say in a voice filled with innuendo.
    “When Shirley got big, they say McHenry known it was his because he was the only one she had been with and he had the bloody sheet to prove it!”
    A gasp would emanate as they shook their heads in loathing.
    “Now ya’ll don’t think that the missus of the house didn’t know what was going on. She knew! And ain’t say one single solitary word about it!”
    “A colored woman would have bust him in his head!” someone would shout out and the crowd would fall out in uproarious laughter.
    “That is the truth! But ya see, she was doing her own midnight tipping down to them stables. Now whether she was laying with man or beast, ain’t for me to say, ’cause I wasn’t there and don’t know one who was.”
    “Uhmph!”
    “When Shirley got too big to ignore it any longer, McHenry sent her away to have that baby. His wife said she wasn’t going to be shamed by what he’d done. She had to be able to go to town and them functions white people are so fond of, and hold her head up. Couldn’t have people whispering behind her back.
    I heard that that child, which is Ciel, was raised by an Injun couple over in Shepardsville. Well, she don’t look like she got an ounce of white blood in her no how, so no one was the smarter.”
    “Yeah, git to the money part!”
    “Well, once a month the couple would find money wrapped in cheesecloth and nailed to their door. People say McHenry was the one to send the money by way of his servants. The couple never knew where it was coming from and if they did, they didn’t say.
    “That man provided for Ciel good and right! And after he died, I heard that he left her a whole heap o’ money!”
    There would be an all consuming stillness, as the people digested the tale and drew their own conclusions from it.
    No, Pearl wouldn’t repeat it now, not if Shirley backed down and found her place again in Pearl’s home. She wouldn’t speak it but she would think it. Think it so caustically that the thoughts themselves would burn from her mind and rest like flames on Shirley’s soul.
    “How you all know it ain’t just a downright lie,” Pearl finished. Her tone challenged everyone in the room.
    Clair Bell and Minnie stared mute. Shirley was afraid to raise her eyes, lest she see her past looking back at her again. Then Clair Bell spoke again.
    “Well, he say he got a friend over in Hampton, who got a friend . . . some high yella boy that happen to got a little money.” She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. “Don’t know his name, though . . . well, he asked Gibson friend if he knew one of them type of women.” She tilted her head toward the open window, indicating Sugar’s house. Indicating Sugar. “And Gibson friend said, that he knew one of them type of women he was looking for. Told him her face wasn’t much to look at, but she made up for that in the bed.”
    Silence.
    “She, she, she! What that mean? Who is ‘she,’ she ain’t Sugar! She could be anyone. Could be you. Could be me!” Pearl was near to yelling, her words came out in waves of trembling emotion.
    “True. He ain’t call her name directly. But he did say that she was over on Grove Street,” Clair Bell said.
    “Grove Street run near a mile long,” Pearl said, running her open hands across her moist face.
    “Uh-huh, that’s what the man said when he told him, but then he made it clear that he should look for her at number ten.”
    Clair Bell’s words echoed in Pearl’s head. Shirley stood and placed her hands on her hips, a triumphant smile resting comfortably on her lips, her past sins forgotten for the moment. “Told you so, Pearl,” she said.
    Minnie saw the