The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore

I’ll come by after leaving your brother’s and finish what my son started.”
    “Nathaniel, please hear me out.”
    “That’s not necessary, Mr. Grove. You’re a real good man, a fair man, but I sure would appreciate it if you would have my son’s wages for the week ready by the time I come back to get him.” Nathaniel tipped his hat toward my uncle and then threw Samuel a stare that left even me feeling scared and uncomfortable. I ran to the Cadillac just ahead of Nathaniel. We both stepped into the car without looking at each other and rode back to Grove Hill in silence.
    The air grew instantly thick and stale, and even I knew that a thunderstorm was heading our way. I hid in my room for two whole days, just trying to catch my breath. Nobody attempted to coax me out, not Maizelle, not even Adelaide. When I finally left my room and wandered downstairs, I found Maizelle sitting on the front porch stringing another bowl of green beans, moving her hands in a predictable and soothing rhythm. She never sat on the front porch unless Mother was out of town. I guess she knew Mother wouldn’t like it, and I guess that’s why she did it. But I was glad she was there, and I sat down next to her, looking for some kind of unspoken comfort.
    “Where you been, child?” Maizelle asked.
    “I think you know where I’ve been,” I snipped, sounding more like a wise-mouthed teenager than a girl with a broken heart.
    “That’s not what I asked. Where you been?” she said again. Her words seemed to float through the air, filling the empty space between us.
    I felt safe next to Maizelle, and without even realizing it, I started pleading my innocence. “Maizelle, I didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Samuel. We just talked, that’s all. I didn’t do anything wrong,” I cried, all the emotion of the past two days suddenly spilling out of my mouth.
    “I know. You were just talking.”
    “Mostly. I promise. He understands me better than anybody I’ve ever known. We talk about everything. He loves me for being me, for being Bezellia, not Bezellia Grove.”
    “Loves you.” Maizelle repeated my words exactly as I had said them, and then she put the bean she was holding in her hands back in the bowl and handed me a pile of my own. She nodded at my lap, instructing me to help with the evening’s last chore.
    “Bezellia, someday you and me may live in a world where a girl like yourself and a boy like Samuel can be together and just talk . But we ain’t there, sweetie. You know that.”
    “But—” I tried to interrupt, but Maizelle just smiled and again nodded at the beans, reminding me to pick one up and pull its green, thready string.
    “You know, when I was a little girl, even smaller than you, I used to follow my mama for miles every day as she walked from one house to another doing laundry for the white people in town. I’d sit there and watch her rub their pretty clothes over an old metal washboard till her knuckles bled. That lye soap just made ’em burn something awful. She’d sit there waving her hands in the air crying ‘Oh, sweet Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus.’ And after all her work was done, she’d walk home with no more than a dime or two in her pocket.” Maizelle snapped another bean and continued with her story:
    “One day a woman told my mama that her work wasn’t good enough, that there were still stains on her husband’s shirts. There weren’t any stains on those shirts, Bezellia. I’d seen ’em with my own eyes. That woman threw those clean clothes in the dirt, told my mama she wasn’t going to pay her for sloppy work.
    “My mama got so mad. I’d never seen her get mad like that. She pushed that woman down in the dirt and rubbed her face in the mud. Oh Lord. That woman’s husband came flying out of his house and beat my mama unconscious, right there in front of me.
    “Now here comes Samuel, so young and handsome, and he believes he can change the world. And we all need him to try,