The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

winter; she’d called the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book . Miss Brown’s clothes weren’t nearly as fancy as those many-layered, frilly costumes in the pictures, but Miss Brown’s presence always made Sarah feel shabby in her own rough, home-spun dress.
    “I got pressin’ for you today,” Miss Brown said.
    “Yes’m,” Sarah nodded, not betraying in her face how much she hated pressing. More often than not, she singed her fingertips trying to keep the iron hot enough in the stove to smooth away the wrinkles in the clothes. But pressing was better than picking cotton, she reminded herself. She thought about the cotton fields almost every day, and how much better it was to work under a roof, at least.
    “You should be finished by six, and then you can go on home.”
    “Yes’m.”
    Then Miss Brown did exactly what Sarah had hoped: Instead of whirling back around to leave the kitchen, she sauntered inside, checking the room for neatness, making sure there weren’t any puddles of water on her floor. Watching Miss Brown’s inspection, Sarah worked up her courage to speak: “I read three words at school today,” she said.
    “Glad you learnin’ somethin ’,” Miss Brown said, not turning around to look at her.
    That wasn’t the enthusiastic response Sarah had hoped for. Miss Brown walked past her, her hips bumping against Sarah in the narrow opening, and Sarah inhaled the woman’s sweet scent that was part rose-scented perfume, part powdery. Miss Brown never smelled like sweat.
    “Miss Brown, how long it took you to read good?”
    At that, Miss Brown stopped to look at her. Her skin was so dark her Papa would have called it blue , and her round cheeks made her look cheerful even when she wasn’t smiling, which she usually wasn’t.
    “They don’t teach y’all grammar at that school?”
    “Ma’am?” Sarah said, confused.
    Miss Brown shook her head as if Sarah had displeased her. “You don’t read good , you read well . There’s a difference, and I pray you’ll learn it one day. How long did it take me to read well? Years and years. Anything really worth doin’ always takes time. When the little missy where I grew up went to school, she taught me, too. When she learned, I learned. ’Course, when the master found out, that was the end of that.” Sarah saw a shadow pass across Miss Brown’s face, and she understood why. In school, her teacher had told them how much the slave owners were afraid of their slaves learning to read; then some of the grown folks in the class had told stories about things that had happened to them when they’d tried, how they’d gotten whippings or been sold away from their families. The oldest woman in Sarah’s class had said her baby son was sold away from her as punishment when her master, who was the baby’s pappy, found out she was learning to read from a preacher.
    “That ol’ marse did somethin’ bad to you, Miss Brown?” Sarah asked.
    Miss Brown shrugged. “A few licks, and I couldn’t play with the little missy after that. But by then it was too late. I already had what I wanted. An’ I went back and taught my mammy and pappy both.” At that, Miss Brown smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile; it was a smile of triumph.
    “Miss Brown, how come yo’ mama name you America?”
    Miss Brown laughed merrily, a sound so loud and unexpected that at first Sarah was afraid she was in pain. Miss Brown took a deep breath and steadied herself by reaching for the table behind Sarah. “Named me … ?” Miss Brown said. “My mama didn’t name me America!”
    “Then, who … ?”
    “Let me tell you somethin’ ’bout white folks,” Miss Brown said, still laughing in her eyes. “The last thing in the world they wanna do is give colored folks any respect. You see how they talk to men and women old enough to be their own mammies and pappies, call ’em boy an’ girl , or Auntie, or call ’em by their Christian names like they were horses— ‘Whoa, Mary!’ Now