Who Is Celinda Grey?
By Aswad
Copyright 2012 Aswad
Published by Aswad at Smashwords
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Chapter One
“Damn it’s cold!” she thought to herself as she stepped off the plane.
Having a private plane had its advantages, but Mother Nature doesn’t care how much money you have at two A.M. in the morning.
“Welcome back, Ms.Grey.”
“Thank you, Jim. is the car ready?”
“Yes, Ma’am. This way.”
Celinda pulled her grey mink cape closer around her slim neck to ward off the chill.
“Reminds me of D.C.” She thought to herself.
A slim, smoke-grey limousine glided smoothly to a stop. Jim jogged around to the passenger side to open the door for his mistress.
“Home, Jim.”
“Yes, Ma’am”
Celinda Nefertiti Grey removed her cape, her dark glasses and leaned back against the soft leather and sighed. She was exhausted. It had been a long trip back from Paris. It had been a long trip from the Projects.
***
“Celinda! Celinda girl! Get your narrow behind in this house now!”
“But Mama! It’s still light out!”
“I don’t care, Missy! You get yourself in here and wash up for dinner! You here me?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Even at sixteen years old, Celinda knew better than to argue with her mother. She’d been out on the stoop with the neighborhood girls all afternoon. Skipping rope. Telling stories and dreaming dreams.
Celinda was the biggest dreamer of them all.
Her mother was always telling her so. Her Mother was also telling her stop it.
“Cain’t no dreams come true where we come from, Missy! So don’t you go gettin’ your hopes up!” Yes, that’s what Mama used to say.
Mamma spoke from hard, bitter experience.
Lucinda Grey had given birth to two children. One in her own bed, in her own apartment, in the Sojourner Truth Projects in the early sixties.
She and Johnny Grey, her first and only husband, had been what Black folks called “Po.” They were so poor they couldn’t afford the other “O” and “R.”
Lucinda worked as a domestic for a white family in the better half of Washington, D.C. In the early sixties, the “better half” of town meant the white half of town.
Lucinda hated the work. It wasn’t that the Manning’s were a bad sort. It was just that Lucinda had better things in mind for herself and her family.
And besides, she was a stubborn woman.
Lucinda didn’t want to mop floors. She wanted to be an actress. Like Dorothy Dandridge or Leena Horne.
She wanted to be in Technicolor. She wanted to be on the Silver Screen ten feet tall, with her name in lights.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Her own mother had been a domestic up until her death. Scrubbing floors for white women while they had teas and pretended she
wasn’t in the room.
The Manning’s acted the same toward her. But at least they called her by her right name. Which was more than her Mother had gotten.
She actually had gone to a few auditions. But she didn’t have much self-esteem. The second time a Casting Director told her she was “too dark,” she ran away in tears.
Straight back to the Manning’s house. And her mop and broom. The dirty diapers. The shattered dreams.
There was no way she was going to let her Daughter go through all that.
Celinda was all she had left. Belinda had run off, God knows where. Never called. Never wrote.
Didn’t she know family was the most important thing in the world? Especially for Black folks?
She worried about her eldest Daughter constantly. Where was she? What was she doing?
Lucinda knew what the world was about. And she had no intentions of letting those things happen to her children. It made her very protective of Celinda. Maybe a little too much so.
“Sit down, your dinners getting cold.”
“Yes, Ma’am Where’s daddy?”
“Working. Where do you think?”
If there was one thing Johnston “Johnny” Grey was good for, it was bringing home the bacon.
Johnny was what you would call, a “Good Church-goin’ man.”
As a matter of fact, that’s where Johnny met Lucinda, at a Church social.
Johnston Grey had dreams too. He was the eldest of four boys. But fate, illness, and the streets conspired against him to crush his dreams early on.
His family had a house in the “decent part of town.”
Basically it was a subdivision of Black professionals that the evening news didn’t seem to know existed.
Doctors, Lawyers and Accountants could all be seen leaving their stylish homes at precisely the same time everyday. Johnny’s Father was a doctor.
Life was good for the Grey’s for a while. But then a pox seemed to settle on their house.
Johnny’s oldest brother, a gang member, shot down in the streets. The twins, Jim and Joshua, both succumbed to a strange form of cancer that seemed to run in the family. They both died on the same day.
The toll all this took on Johnny’s parents could not be fathomed.
One day Johnny woke up to find out that his Mother was gone. Just gone. She had taken not a blouse, not a toothbrush, not a suitcase. She was never heard from again.
Johnny’s Father, Johnston Senior, fell into a deep depression. It was really more than he could bear. Here he was a doctor and he couldn’t save his own family from illness.
And that left, Johnny. All alone.
After his part-time job at the Bus Station after school, he had no one to talk to. His Father would come home from the office and sit in front of the TV watching the “Ed Sullivan Show,” and drinking.
Johnny would go for long, lonely walks. He had no idea what he was going to do.
He thought of going into the Army. Many young Black men in the neighborhood were doing it. They said it was a great opportunity for Blacks and even paid for college.
He stopped in at a local Church Service and just cried.
The place felt safe. Warm. Welcoming. A place where he could share his feelings and not be ashamed.
He joined the Youth Committee and worked on Youth Outreach.
It was at one of these Youth Committee Church Socials that he met Lucinda. Some saw her as dumpy and plain. But to Johnny Grey, she was a vision.
She was a solidly built young woman, with the darkest smoothest skin he had ever seen. And a smile that could melt the coldest heart. He noticed her the minute she walked into the gym where the Social was being held.
He asked her to dance. She said no.
Lucinda felt that she was not attractive enough for this good-looking Church boy. But he was persistent.
During a slow dance, Johnny said, “Girl, you the prettiest thing I seen in my life!”
She immediately burst into tears. No man had told her that before. Not in her entire life. Not even her Father.
They danced the night away. Fast. Slow. Everything in-between.
“Baby Love” by Diana Ross and the Supremes became “their song.” He sang it to her. Every word. She laughed out loud. Johnny was a terrible singer!
Later he walked her home. He stumbled over his words at her front door. Not knowing what to say. She was the first girl he had ever had feelings for. It was all very new to him.
“Well then. Uh. ‘Night!”
And with that, he placed a brotherly peck on her cheek and dashed down the sidewalk before she had a chance to say anything.
Over the next three months there would be more Church Dances. Socials. Ice Cream. Long walks. And more ice cream. Lucinda protested that she as getting fat from all that ice cream.
“Oh girl! Don’t you be worrin’ about that, now! I like my women healthy!” Johnny would say, pinching her bottom
She giggled. He always knew how to make her laugh.
He proposed to her one fine Sunday afternoon after Church.
She looked pretty in pink and white.
He had taken the time to put a pink carnation in the lapel of his blue Sunday suit. They looked married already.
“I… um. I was thinkin’ Ms. Lucinda, we been together now for a while, and I was thinkin’…”
At the rate he was sweating his Sunday suit wouldn’t be his Sunday best much longer.
“What is it your trying to say Johnny?”
He wished this weren’t so hard. He had no idea how to do this. And then it came to him to just do it like the white guys did in the movies.
He got down on one knee and looked up at her imploringly. He took the little black velvet box from his pocket. He’d picked it up at Woolworth’s yesterday. It was only a little $5 Dime Store ring, but to her it looked like the Star of Africa.
“Oh! Oh Johnny! Does this mean what I think it means?”
“Uh huh!” Eloquent as ever.
She burst into tears and threw her arms around his neck and screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ll marry you!”
Given both of their circumstances, their marriage was as plain as possible.
Lucinda treated herself to a beautiful white dress with lace trim, ivory gloves and matching hat.
Johnny wore his good blue Sunday suit. After a good airing out of course.
After the “I do’s” were said, Johnny convinced Lucinda to move in with him and his Father. She agreed of course. She had no reason not too. After a month, she wished she’d had thought twice.
Johnny’s Father treated Lucinda like a piece of furniture.
The day of their wedding, Johnny brought her home for introductions. His Father barely looked up from the TV and gave a rather non-committal grunt as a welcome.
“I’m pleased to meet you Mr. Grey!” Lucinda tried to sound chipper, but the man made her nervous. There was deadness to his eyes. She felt like she was talking to a ghost.
“It’s Doctor Grey! And get me another drink! You’re going to make yourself useful around here Missy!”
This had made her tremble. But she wanted to get along with her new Father-in-law, so she did as she was told.
As a matter-of-fact, she became the new woman of the house. She didn’t really have much choice.
Since Johnny’s Mother had left, and all his Father did was drink, the house keeping fell by the way side.
Johnny had finished school by the time of his marriage so he took a job as an apprentice mechanic at the bus depot. He was working on getting a job as a Driver. He liked the hours and the money was better. He wanted to move out of his Father’s house and into a place of his own where he and Lucinda could start their family.
His Father on the other hand, slipped deeper and deeper into despair.
He mortgaged the house, and sank all the money into a phony scheme for Black skin care products.
Unfortunately his “business partner” knew nothing about dermatology and everything about swindling.
A year later, all his savings were gone, and the bank was sending him foreclosure notices once a month.
“Dr. Grey? Sir? Is everything all right?”
Lucinda had kept her mouth shut for a year and a half now. She and Johnny’s Honeymoon had been brief to say the least. A weekend actually.
They’d driven to Maryland for crabs and dancing. They’d made love. They’d lay in bed almost an entire Sunday and planned their future life together.
Johnny had promised her the house to raise her babies in. His Father wouldn’t be around much longer, and he felt he deserved the house since after all; he had lived in it all his life.
“No! Everything ain’t all right! Damn, you can be a dumb girl sometimes!”
Dr. Grey had never once hit Lucinda in all the time she had known him. But he yelled and screamed at her relentlessly. Somehow she wished he’d just hit her and get it over with. The words he used hurt her more than any physical wound ever could.
“Dr. Grey… it’s not that I mean to pry, it’s just that the mail has been piling up and you got a call from Mr. Whitman down to the bank again!”
“I don’t give a damn, girl! Why don’t you just stay out my business?”
“But this house is my business! Johnny and I are going to raise our babies here!”
A look of incredulousness spread across the good doctor’s face. As if someone had just told him the sky was purple.
“Oh is that right Missy? Oh is that the case now? You marry up with my boy, my last boy, and you expect to be dropping little babies around here like you own the place is that it?”
“Well no but…”
“But” what, woman? You one of them new liberated types isn't ya? Ain’t ya?” He bellowed at her.
Lucinda could smell his breath. Rancid as usual. He’d been drinking since noon. He had less and less clients since no one wanted a drunk for a doctor.
She may not have been “liberated” but she was fast getting to know the difference between liberated and inebriated.
“All I’m trying to say is that don’t you think you should get things in order? The man at the bank says if you just make one payment he can stop the foreclosure!”
She was only trying to help, but this made him even more furious.
“What? Whatcu'’ doin’ talkin’ to the bank? Thas’ my business!!”
“I wasn’t talkin’ to the man, I was taking a message! For you! Somebody has to since you damn sure don’t do nuthin’ round here but drink and watch that damn TV!”
She knew she was going too far. into hallowed territory. But she was getting mad too. And she was scared. She had seen what happened to Black folks who had no houses and had wound up in the projects. All her other dreams had long since died; she wasn’t going to have this house follow them.
“You are one dumb-assed girl! You know that? There ain’t nuthin’ can be done! Nothin!”
“What…? What do you mean?”
“I mean there ain’t no money left in this house girl! Only that little tinny ass paycheck that Johnny brings home every week. Thas’ it! Thas’ all! Don’t you get it?”
“But… you’re a doctor! Doctors have money…! Don’t they?”
She realized how she sounded. She was beginning to actually feel like a dumb girl.
“I had money, girl. I had money. It’s gone. Bastard swindled me out of it. Can’t believe I was taken by one of my own people. My own people...damn it!”
Lucinda gasped. Maybe she was a dumb girl. She had never heard of a Black person swindling another Black person.
There was a long silence while Dr. Grey stewed over this revelation. While Lucinda fretted out loud.
“But what about my babies…?”
“Girl, would you stop going on about your damned babies? I don’t care if you have babies or puppies, cause this house is gone!”
Lucinda just stood there dumb-founded while he ranted and raved.
“And anyway, who would want to see your babies anyway? They wouldn’t be nuthin’ but a bunch more dark-ass little pickininnies. Jus’ like you.”
Lucinda opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
All her life people had called her dark and ugly. As if there was anything she could do about it. Then she realized there was something she could do about it.
She walked into the room she shared with Johnny, laid down on the bed, and cried.
***
“There’s a traffic jam up ahead Ms. Grey! Do you want me to go to surface streets?”
“Yes Jim. Take the scenic route. I love the city at this hour of the night.”
“Yes, Ms. Grey.”
Celinda leaned back once again and watched the rainfall. The rain always brought back memories for Celinda. Both good and bad.
She reached into her purse and pulled out the Cable Gram again.
She couldn’t remember how many times she’d read it since it’s arrival at her Paris apartment.
“We regret to inform you of the death of your parents in a fire at the Sojourner Truth Housing Projects. Please return to Washington to identify the remains. Our deepest apologies. Washington, DC. Police Department.”
“Damn those filthy projects!” Celinda spat bitterly.
Jim didn’t turn around. He knew better than to interrupt his Mistress while she was thinking. She’d almost fired him the last time.
“I can’t believe their gone.” She thought to herself.
“But then again, I lived there too. Why should I be surprised?”
***
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
Lucinda held Johnny’s hand tight as they stood over the grave of Johnny’s Father.
The situation never had time to improve. No amount of assistance could have helped, even if it had been forthcoming.
Johnny worked his way up from apprentice to junior driver. He had gotten the raise he needed to take over the payments on the house. But it was too late. The bank foreclosed.
Dr. Grey had not made a payment in almost a year.
His Medical Practice was over. When word got around town about the woman he had accidentally cut with a scalpel while removing a growth while drunk, people stopped coming. His new full-time job became drinking and depression.
Two days before the Sheriff showed up with an eviction notice, he shot at them. They shot back.
“I just can’t believe my whole family’s gone!”
“But your family isn’t all gone Johnny! I’m here. I’m always going to be here! And were going to have our own family! Our own babies! Everything’s going to turn out fine you’ll see!”
So in January of 1963, Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Grey moved into the Sojourner Truth Housing projects. They planned to make their stay as short as possible.
But the best laid plans… as they say.
Lucinda didn’t know it but she was two months pregnant when they arrived at Sojourner Truth. With all that was going on in their lives, she had been ignoring the signals from her body. She thought she was upset and taxed from stress. Seven months later she gave birth to her first child, Belinda. Belinda was a big girl. Dark of skin and big of bone. But with a smile that would melt your heart and make you care for her the moment you met her. Lucinda wanted everything for her first child. But there was only so much she could give.
Johnny was now a full time driver for the Bus Company. He worked 15-hour days trying to save up the money to get his family out of the projects. But it wasn’t working.
The medical bills from Belinda’s birth still weren’t paid and he himself had had to have four rotten teeth removed. He had never been to the dentist a day in his life.
Things were… OK. But they weren’t getting any better.
They couldn’t save any money. Lucinda would have to take an outside job.
“An outside job? Johnny, I don’t want to go out and get no job!”
“But you have to! If we’re ever going to get out of here, you have to! You can’t be telling’ me you like it here?” “Of course I don’t, but…”
“But what?”
She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him that her greatest fear was to have to go back out there again and have someone else tell her she was ugly. She just couldn’t take it. She didn’t want to hear it again.
“What’s the matter? Is my beautiful girl telling’ me she’s afraid of something?”
She smiled. She could all ways count on her Johnny to keep her spirits up in spite of everything.
“OK, Johnny. You’re right. I’ll do it.”
And go she did. Out into the work-a-day world.
She made a baby-sitting deal with Mrs. James down the hall. She had a daughter about Belinda’s age, so it worked out perfectly.
Lucinda spent nearly a month walking from store to store.
It was not doing much for her self-esteem. She was constantly being told she didn’t fit the “image” of a proper sales girl.
“Not pretty enough.” “Too dark.” “Too short.” “Too smart.”
At least nobody had called her ugly. Yet.
She started answering ads for Domestics. Her Mother had been one, so why not?
Most of the finer Black families had Maids all ready, so she made her way over to the “good” part of town, to the white neighborhood.
Even the air smelled different over there. Cleaner. Sweeter somehow. Of course they had flowers growing in every yard on that side of town.
Sissy Manning didn’t do housework. She didn’t even do her own nails. That’s what "girls" were for.
That’s how Sissy referred to Black women. Girls.
So when Lucinda showed up, all smiles and enthusiasm, looking for work, Sissy was quite pleased. “Do you have any experience Mrs. Grey?” Sissy asked imperiously.
She sat on her favorite Divan, back straight, nose so high in the air, it almost scraped the ceiling.
“Well, not in anyone else’s home. But my Mother was a Domestic and I used to help her at her work.”
“So your Mother was a “girl” as well?”
“No ma’am! My Mother was a woman!” Sissy laughed at this. This girl was dumber than she thought. This would work out quite nicely.
Lucinda went to work at six each morning. Johnny came home from the night shift at seven. They rarely bumped into each other. Except on weekends.
It was a wonder that Lucinda became pregnant again, five years later.
Neither had health insurance, and Johnny was only now making head way on the families various bills. Most of them medical.
Belinda had broken her arm when she was four. Chasing around the playground in front of the projects. She’d tripped and fell on it. What with the ambulance and emergency room bill and painkillers, the bill was over a thousand dollars.
“Johnny, it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“I’m havin’ the baby, Johnny!”
“We can’t afford to go to the hospital again, Lucinda! We just can’t!”
“How’ m I supposed to have my baby then?”
“Get in the bed! Just get in the bed! I’ll go down the hall and get Mrs. James to help. You’ll have the baby here!”
It was a struggle. But there was nothing else they could do. They were finally making headway on the bills. They couldn’t afford another massive medical bill.
Lucinda was terrified. She had no idea what would happen. She didn’t know what would happen if this birth was as difficult as the first had been.
Fortunately, it wasn’t.
With Mrs. James’s help, Celinda Nerfertiti Grey was born without incident in her mother’s bed in the Sojourner Truth Housing projects.
***
“We’re here Ms. Grey.”
“Thank you Jim.”
There were many high-rise buildings in downtown New York. Celinda had been fortunate to have the good taste to pick the best one in town.
The elevator took her straight to the top floor penthouse.
As the door opened she stepped directly into her sunken living room.
Large over stuffed couches framed a large fireplace. The couches were covered in thick, durable dark grey silk. Extra large throw pillows were lined up perfectly on each couch. Each one an ever slightly lighter shade of the same grey silk.
Celinda stepped out of her shoes and threw her cape over the back of the antique chair at her writing desk as if it were common cotton not mink.
After pouring herself a Brandy, she plopped down on the ottoman and was immediately greeted by Alexis, her pure white longhaired, pure bred, Persian cat.
“Well hello Alexis! Did you miss me?”
Alexis was always the most inscrutable and affectionate of felines.
Celinda had been attending a Paris Cat Show when she first saw her. Alexis was the last of a litter of purebred Persians that no one seemed to want. Celinda was familiar with the feeling.
And she couldn’t believe no one would want such a stunning little beauty.
Alexis had the whitest coat that Celinda had ever seen. And the biggest greenest eyes of any cat in the show. They took to each other immediately.
Celinda bought her on the spot. Put her in a diamond collar and named her Alexis after her favorite character on her favorite night time soap opera.
“Did you take care of the house while I was gone baby?”
Alexis just purred. She had missed her mommy.
“Grandma and Granddaddy are gone, Alexis. They’re gone. What am I going to do now? What am I going to do Alexis? Can you tell me?”
Even if Alexis could talk, she wouldn’t have known what to say. Celinda’s life had always been… complicated.
***
“Momma, why does Daddy have to work so late?”
“Because he has too! All right! Now stop asking so many damned questions and eat your dinner!”
Just because she was sixteen didn’t mean Celinda didn’t know what was going on around her. She constantly heard her parents arguing about their working hours. They argued whenever they were together. Which wasn’t often.
Johnny had been working the night shift since he started with the Bus Company. He kept being told he needed seniority.
A fact which didn’t seem to make sense to him since younger less experience white drivers seemed to be passing him by.
Then one afternoon in the driver’s locker room, he over heard a white driver say that the company was keeping Black drivers on the night shift because they were among the highest crime hours.
“Let the Black guys deal with the drunks and crazies. Why should we be bothered?”
“They forever trying to keep me down! DAMN IT!” Johnny would scream at Lucinda. He would just be getting home from work and she would be preparing to leave. They had about a half hour together.
“Well what do you want me to do about it? I’m working too! We got money in the bank! Why can’t we leave here?”
“‘Cause we ain’t got enough for a down payment on a house yet! And we ain’t leaving’ here till we do!”
“This place is too small for all of us!”
“It ain’t that small! And since Belinda left there’s more room!”
“How dare you!!”
Belinda Grey had run away from home when she was twelve.
The life of a big-boned dark skinned girl from the projects had not been an easy one. And Belinda had cracked.
One afternoon when Lucinda had come home, she found Belinda’s bed empty, her one suitcase gone. Just a note on her pillow.
“Dear Mommy; I am leaving. I hate it here. We never have any money for anything. The halls smell. The people here are never happy. Everything here is ugly. I’m ugly.
I hate it all! I’m going to find some place pretty. Where I can be pretty. When I find that place, I will write you. I love you, Belinda.” Lucinda hadn’t heard from Belinda since.
“Mama what about the contest? Can we send in a picture?”
“Did you pass your spelling test like you promised?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“All right then. Tomorrow’s Saturday, we can go to the Goodwill and see about a new dress.”
“Goody!”
Celinda said “goody” because she knew she had to be a “good girl.” She also knew she didn’t want any “new” dress from the Goodwill. Almost all her clothes came from the Goodwill. And everyone in the neighborhood knew it.
She wanted more new things. All the kids at school had great tennis shoes and sweat suits and gold chains.
Celinda’s clothes were plain, used and durable. They had been washed so many times they had a sheen to them that was very visible when the sun hit them.
Only for Christmas and her birthday did she get new things. And since neither one was coming up soon, it was back to the Goodwill.
“Do we have to go to the Goodwill again Mamma?”
“You know better than to ask me a question like that young lady!”
“Yes ma’am.” That was usually the end of the discussion.
***
She stroked Alexis’s silken fur and decided a second Brandy was in order. She never had more than one. But tonight was an exception. It wasn’t everyday your parents died.
Actually, it wasn’t everyday your parents died and you weren’t there for them.
Not they’re for them at all.
***
For a dress from the Goodwill, it looked great.
Celinda admired herself in the bathroom mirror. She liked what she saw.
He short Afro had been picked out into a perfect orb around her head. Her dark skin shone from a good old-fashioned scrubbing. Her dress was white. And even whiter since her mother had bleached it when they’d gotten it home. She wore white patent leather shoes with white socks. And cute little white enamel bracelets adorned her wrist.
She looked stunning. Tall, dark and lovely. And ready. Ready to take on the world.
As she and her Mother took the bus to the Civic Center, Celinda thought to herself that she should be nervous. But she wasn’t. She felt as if she was on her way to an appointment she had to keep.
***
His plane was late, the food had been terrible, and a tackily dressed woman from Texas had droned on relentlessly about having met a Black man from Paris. Americans bored him.
Benson Michelle was trying to have a vacation. Even if it was a working vacation.
He had been a commercial photographer in Paris for only five years, but he already had a reputation for knowing what woman was beautiful, and what woman was special. Very special.
He had photographed women for Vogue, Paris Match, Metropolitan and Essence. He knew beauty. And he knew where to find it.
* * *
Celinda sat in the front row of the auditorium with the other girls in the contest. She still didn’t feel nervous.
“Glow & Sheen” was by far the most popular line of hair care products for Blacks on the market.
They had become so widely used that the company that produced them, The Johnson Group, was being traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
The “Glow & Sheen Beauty Contest for Young Ladies” was being held to pick the cover girl for “Glow & Sheen” products for the next year. The winner would appear in all print advertising, all TV commercials and tout the company’s products to the young on “Soul Train” and “American Bandstand.”
As Celinda sat dutifully in her seat, she surreptitiously surveyed her competition. She didn’t feel at all worried.
One girl was so big; Celinda thought “Good Year” should have been printed across her dress. Another girl’s teeth were so bad; she really should have been in a stream somewhere building a dam with the rest of the beavers. There were two other girls who were quite pretty, Celinda thought, but they weren’t as tall as she.
Then there was Renatta. Celinda had seen Renatta before.
While shopping for her new dress, Celinda and her mother had passed the beauty parlor and spied Renatta through the window having her hair relaxed.
Celinda recalled asking, “Mamma, how come I can’t have my hair done?”
“Because we can’t afford it, that’s why! Besides your hair is fine the way it is, now come on!”
Celinda envied Renatta’s hair. It shone in the bright lights of the auditorium. Celinda had no idea what had been done to it. All she knew was that Renatta’s hair was now as long and straight as any of those pretty TV women she saw. She was jealous. But still not nervous.
* * *
When Benson got to his hotel the mail was already waiting for him.
Most were congratulatory notes on his last photo essay on the Women of Sudan.
Benson had proven admirably that women without money, bright lights and make-up, and in this case even a home can be beautiful.
He had spent a month on the Sudan, photographing the woman as they drew water from the river; breast fed their young, and went to market with large baskets perched majestically atop their turbans. Their bare breasts swaying easily in the hot desert air.
The photographs were breath-taking to say the least. Benson won three photographic awards for the series.
Among all the accolades turned up an invitation to the “Glow & Sheen” contest.
Benson laughed to himself. “Little girls prancing around trying to be big girls. How quaint!”
He was about to throw the invitation in the garbage when he thought again.
“Hmm. There may be some new talent there. You never know.”
He grabbed his lightest weight, 35mm camera and dashed out the door. After all he had nothing better to do this afternoon. Dinner wasn’t for hours and he was too wound up to sleep. Benson Michelle didn’t believe in “jet lag.”
* * *
Celinda was becoming impatient. These dumb girls were taking forever with their turns.
It was supposed to be simple. Each girl was supposed to walk the runway twice, then give a short speech on what it would mean to her to be chosen “Ms. Glow & Sheen.”
Celinda watched Renatta bop across the stage to the sound of the Jackson’s singing “Dancing Machine.” She knew the girl was competition. Now she was feeling nervous. Until Renatta opened her mouth to speak.
“Hi! My name Renatta! I’m fixin’ to be the next “Ms. Glow & Sheen” ‘cause I look good! Don’t y’all think so?”
It was all Celinda could do to keep from busting out laughing. She had never heard anybody sound so country in her life.
All feelings of nervousness immediately ceased.
Her turn came, and her Mother sat back in her seat and grinned. She had picked the music for Celinda turn. “Baby Love”. Her and Johnny’s song.
Celinda sent out a smile that could melt a glacier She strode confidently out to the edge of the runway, hitting every beat of the song.
When she reached the end, she twirled and smiled even brighter.
People were captivated. They had never seen a young woman with such poise and confidence. She was on!
Benson eased his way into the back of the auditorium just as Celinda was twirling, about to make her second trip down the runway.
He looked up, and his heart stopped. But his hand flew immediately to his camera. He was amazed.
He knew he was there as an invited guest, but he couldn’t stop his professional instincts from kicking in. He saw her for the first time, and he knew a diamond in the rough when he saw one. His camera clicked away relentlessly as Celinda strode the runway as if she were born to it.
“Maybe she was,” he thought out loud.
As he kept on clicking, he thought out loud, “There’s a lot there. A lot. A little polishing, a little prodding, and the little darling will have to have her hair done!”
Lucinda watched with pride from the second row where the parents sat.
She was so full of pride she thought she’d float off the chair. Her baby was so beautiful. So poised. So pretty.
But mixed with the pride, was sadness. Even melancholy.
“That should be me up there.” She thought to herself bitterly.
There was actually a small part of her; deep down inside of her she didn’t know it was there until that very moment.
She was jealous of her own Daughter. And she hated herself for it.
Celinda made her last turn on the runway and strode confidently to the podium. Still not really nervous.
She didn’t know what it was she wanted to say, but she knew it would come to her. And it did.
“Hello. My name is Celinda. I’m sixteen years old, and I would like to be “Ms. Glow & Sheen.” I would like to be “Ms. Glow & Sheen” because I think young ladies should take care of themselves. Look after themselves. We can do anything we want to do if we just believe in ourselves!”
There was a stunned silence in the auditorium as people grappled with the amount of wisdom that had just come from a sixteen year old.
There was a heartbeat or two, and then the auditorium erupted in thunderous applause.
Celinda smiled, curtsied like the little lady she was, and stepped graciously down the stairs like she’d just won the Ms. Black America Contest.
“What made you say that baby?” Lucinda asked her daughter as she sat down.
“I don’t know mama, it just seemed like the right the thing to say.”
“Oh!” Lucinda didn’t know what to say. They had never discussed the speech part of the contest; they had spent so much time focusing on her dress.
“And the last contestant of the afternoon is Ms. Melissa!”
This girl was the competition that did make Celinda nervous.
Melissa was a stunning girl. Nearly as tall as Celinda, but not quite. Her hair was perfectly straight, and gleamed in the auditorium’s bright lights. She was so light skinned as to be almost honey-colored. And she had a smile that was at once adorable and seductive.
“She’s pretty! And good, too! Darn!” Celinda found herself thinking the first competitive thoughts she’d ever thought in her life.
“I hope she doesn’t win. I want to win! I should win!”
A fire burned in the pit of her stomach as she watched Melissa take her turn on the runway. The girl was good, and serious competition. And she had only two things Celinda didn’t have; straight hair and light skin.
Even at the tender age of sixteen, Celinda had learned that light-skinned girls got more attention. And that straightened hair was "better".
Her Mother had instilled in her that just because her skin was dark didn’t mean that she as any better or any worse than anybody else. And that straight hair was just that.
But as Celinda watched Melissa walk to the podium to give her speech, she knew better. She knew she couldn’t do anything about her skin, and didn’t want to, but she knew she should have had her hair done.
“Hello! My name is Melissa!” She said with entirely too much enthusiasm.
“I would like to be “Ms. Glow & Sheen” because I believe young ladies should present a perfect image at all times! And “Glow & Sheen” helps us do that!”
Celinda felt ill. This girl was a phony. But she was a gorgeous phony. She just prayed she wouldn’t win.
“We will now adjourn while the judges make their decision! We have punch and cookies for you ladies right over there!”
As the assemblage broke up, many making a bee line for the free fruit punch and cookies, Benson drifted aimlessly through the crowd.
He observed Celinda as she stood talking to her mother, casually munching on a chocolate chip cookie.
She looked pensive. Almost tense.
Benson sensed strength, a power if you will, in the slim young dark-skinned girl with the thrift store dress.
Celinda flicked a chocolate chip off the front of her dress and glanced up to see Melissa grinning at her like a Cheshire cat.
Melissa just knew she was going to win. Celinda could see in the smug look on the girls face.
The judges had retired to a rear office to tabulate the votes. There were three judges from the community, and a “Glow & Sheen” executive there to add input from the company.
After all, the winner would represent his company for the next year in the advertising; she had to be just right.
“How’s it going?” Asked Mr. “Glow & Sheen.”
“Well, we can’t seem to make a decision. So far it’s a tie between Melissa and Celinda!”
Mr. “Glow & Sheen” snapped up the Polaroid’s for the two girls that had been taken at the registration desk for the contest.
Melissa’s hair was perfect. Her skin was perfect. Her teeth were perfect. She was too perfect.
She looked to him like a Black dress up doll from the toy store.
Celinda on the other hand, looked honest. Real. True her hair was still natural, but that could be changed.
And besides, the kids who actually used “Glow & Sheen” were more Celinda’s complexion than Melissa’s. Making Celinda the more realistic choice.
* * *
“Mama, what if I don’t win?”
“Then you don’t win, baby. It ain’t the end of the world!”
It was to Celinda.
The judges and Mr. “Glow & Sheen” filed out of the office. Purposely not looking at any of the girls.
Celinda held her breath. She felt more like the defendant in a murder trial awaiting the verdict, than she did a young lady awaiting a decision in a simple little contest.
But this was no simple little contest to Celinda.
Like her sister, Celinda wanted out of the projects. She wanted away from the smell and the noise. The mean boys and the dirt. The school that didn’t challenge her and the white teachers who always told her she was wrong when she knew damned well she was right.
She even wanted away from her parents. She wanted away from their arguing. They’re fighting. They’re not loving each other anymore.
All they talked about anymore was money. Money for a house that Celinda was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to have.
Maybe if she got away from there, went someplace, did something, anything! Maybe if…
Benson Michelle resumed his spot in the back of the auditorium, out of sight. He actually found cover under a huge picture hat worn by a large lady who had obviously put on her Sunday best for the contest.
“We have made a decision! It was a very hard one to make! All of you young ladies are just so lovely! Let’s give them all a round of applause!”
The only applause Celinda wanted to here was for her. When she won.
“Thank you! Thank you! And now, the decision. The choice was very, very hard for us to make! This young lady will represent the “Glow & Sheen” Company for the next year. And we think that this young lady is very deserving for her style, poise and grace. And the winner is…”
Celinda held her breath as the woman picked up the three-by- five cards with her name on it.
“Melissa Henderson!!”
There was applause, but Celinda couldn’t here it. She was devastated.
“I didn’t win.” She said in a small voice to no one but herself.
Melissa took to the stage like she was Ms. America or something. Smiling her too perfect smile, waving her too perfect wave.
Mr. “Glow & Sheen” was furious.
“What’s going on here? I thought we agreed the other girl would win!”
“Well I’m sorry sir, but we think Melissa will better represent our community!” The old woman sniffed at him haughtily.
She had no intentions of telling this “Uppity New York Negro,” that Celinda’s hair wasn’t straightened and her skin was too dark. She wasn’t “right.”
Celinda wanted to leave. She needed to get out of there before she threw up.
Melissa, that disgustingly plastic girl. Up there smiling and laughing with the teachers and Church Women. She hated her. It should have been she up there.
“Mother can we go home now?”
“Don’t you want to say congratulations to Ms. Melissa?”
“Why?” There was nothing Celinda wanted to say to Melissa except maybe "drop dead".
“Now, now, Missy! There’s no reason to be poking your mouth out like that! I didn’t raise you to be no sore loser!”
It was at this point that Celinda realized her Mother said an awful lot of things she really didn’t care to hear.
“I have nothing to say to that phony girl!”
“All right then! You be that way! But we’re not going for ice cream till you learn how to behave!” Lucinda scolded.
“Fine.”
Lucinda wasn’t used to this. She thought the contest would be fun for her daughter. But it seemed to bring out in her a side she didn’t recognize. Although it was a side that was vaguely familiar.
It was a feeling she had had herself. Years ago. At those casting calls where they told her she was too dark. And ugly.
Benson Michelle was not in the habit of letting opportunities slip through his fingers. Especially when opportunity came packaged in such a lovely dark brown wrapper.
“Excuse me Ma’am… !”
Lucinda was shocked at the sight of him.
She couldn’t remember when she had ever seen such an impossibly handsome Black man.
“Oh! Yes?” It was all she could do to say that much. He had so taken her aback.
“My name is Benson Michelle. I’m a photographer… from Paris.”
“Paris?”
“Yes, Madame. I’m here on a working vacation and the magazine I work for gave me an invitation to the contest. Is Celinda your daughter? I can certainly see where she got her glorious looks from!”
Lucinda wasn’t used to this kind of flattery from men. But Johnny had long warned her against smooth talking con men.
“Yes, she’s my daughter.” Lucinda said warily.
“Well! I’m not surprised! Although I am surprised she didn’t win the contest! She was robbed Madame! Robbed!”
She liked the way he called her “Madame.” It made her feel “Continental.”
“What can I do for you Mr.…?”
“Michelle, Madame. Benson Michelle. Here, take my card. I think your daughter could have a fabulous future!”
“Future as what?”
“Why as a model of course, Madame!”
Celinda stood next to her mother and took in every word of the conversation. She was positively dumbstruck by Benson Michelle.
He couldn’t have been much older than she. Maybe twenty-five. He had the silkiest jet-black hair, pulled back in a ponytail. He was wearing a black silk shirt under a beat up old black leather jacket and blue jeans with fancy black boots. Made in France no doubt.
“A Model? Mr. What is you talkin’ about? My daughter’s going to get herself a real job and bring a paycheck in my house! We ain’t got time for no foolishness!”
Celinda couldn’t believe what her Mother was saying. Her bad day was getting worse by the minute.
“Oh I assure you Madame, this is no fools errand I’m on! I have photographed some of the most fabulous women in the world for some of the most prestigious fashion magazines published today! Vogue, Paris Match, Metropolitan! You name it!”
“So you think Celinda would make a good model? Why?”
“Look at her Madame! Your daughter is truly stunning! That face! Those cheekbones! That skin!”
“She’s too dark!” Lucinda barked harshly.
“Mama!!” Why was her Mother trying to embarrass her in front of this incredibly beautiful man who didn’t sound like any Black man she had ever met in her life?
“Oh no Madame! Not in Paris. For America yes, but not in France! This country is not yet ready to acknowledge the beauty of the Black woman! In Paris, with those looks, the proper clothes and hair do, your daughter would be a sensation!”
Lucinda sat back in her work shoes and looked at Benson Michelle.
His accent intrigued her. He smelled wonderful. And she had certainly heard of the magazines he mentioned. Who hadn’t? And he was talking to them and not Melissa.
But what would Johnny say? Celinda? In Paris?
“You want to take my daughter to Paris, France?”
“Oui, Madame! My magazine will pay all expenses. I will be her escort! No more! We would have separate hotel accommodations, first class of course. And upon arriving in Paris I will install her at Cordia’s House.”
“What’s that?”
“Cordia’s House is a rooming house and finishing school for young Models of Color in Paris. Madame Cordia Doucette runs it. She was a former model herself, and a former Ms. Black Texas! Madame Cordia teaches young ladies proper dress, hair, make-up and deportment. Rest assured Madame, there’s no better teacher for a young lady than Madame Cordia!”
“You would only be her escort?” “Oui, Madame!” Celinda thought she would pee on herself. The tone of her mothers voice had changed considerably. She sounded like she was actually considering this!
“Well…”
“Madame, please! Your daughter is a natural! These other girls… they’re pretty yes, but Celinda she has… “It!”
“It? What’s “It?”
Celinda was rather anxious to know herself what this mysterious “It” was and did she need a vaccination for it before she went to Paris.
“It” is hard to explain Madame. It is a quality that makes you look at a person a second time. Makes you take notice of a woman, not just in a sexual way, but as an energy, an entity, a being!”
Lucinda had a basic idea of what he was talking about.
She looked down at her daughter, who in turn looked up at her with wide eyes that pleaded with her to take this man seriously.
“Well, I’ll have to talk it over with my husband first of course…”
“Of course, Madame.”
“Then I should call this magazine here on your card…?”
“Oui! Metropolitan!”
“Metropolitan.”
Celinda liked that name. It sounded classy!
“But if you’re on the level, and my husband and I are assured my daughter won’t be harmed, and paid properly!”
“Very well paid, Madame! I assure you!”
“All right then. You may be hearing from us Mr. Michelle. Maybe!”
“Magnifique, Madame! You won’t be disappointed.”
Benson kissed the back of Lucinda's hand like the European gentleman that he was, and then he turned to Celinda.
“I hope you get to come along with me Mademoiselle. I see great things for you!”
“Thank you.” Celinda whispered. She was trying to sound grown up and sophisticated and had to fight an urge to giggle.
“Good evening to you, beautiful ladies!”
“Nice meeting you Mr. Michelle!”
“The feeling is mutual, Madame. I hope to hear from you soon!”
“We’ll see.”
“Mademoiselle!” He bowed to Celinda. Her hand flew to her mouth as she smiled at him.
And with that he was gone, in a flash of leather and a ponytail flapping in the breeze.
“Mama?”
“We’ll talk about it over ice cream, Celinda. Come on.”
Suddenly she felt lighter than air. All thoughts of the “Glow & Sheen” contest completely forgotten.
She felt like she had won the real prize today!
* * *
“She ain’t going’ and that’s it!!”
“Johnny why don’t you just stop yelling for five minutes and let me explain!” It had been a couple of days since the contest and Johnny Grey was being difficult to say the least.
Celinda cowered in her room. This was one of the worst arguments she had ever heard her parents have. It scared her.
Her Father was using language she had never heard from him before, he was usually so quiet and gentle.
“She ain’t going’, Lucinda!! And that’s that!!”
“No that’s not “that” Mr. Johnny Grey! You listen to me!”
“Listen to what? Listen to you tell me how you want our daughter to go running’ off to Paris, France with some crazy white photographer?”
“Johnny I told you, the man is Black! He’s a Black fashion photographer from Paris!! Don’t you listen?”
“Yeah!! When there’s somethin’ worth hearing!”
There was silence as Lucinda leaned back into her work shoes that she’d bought from the drug store.
She had always sacrificed the finer things in life for herself, so she could provide for her children. And now there was a chance for one of her children to provide for her.
“Look. I called Paris. I called the magazine. I called Madame Cordia’s house where she’ll be stayin’. It’s all for real, Johnny! Don’t you see that?”
“It ain’t real! It ain’t nothing but a scam! We’ll spend all our savings sending her over there and then she’ll come back pregnant, beat up or both! Uh, uh!”
Johnny turned his back. More silence.
“Let me tell you something Johnny Grey. I have no intentions of spending the rest of my life in these filthy-ass projects! Do you hear me?”
“I don’t want to stay here either! What makes you think I do?”
“We have enough for a down-payment on a house, why can’t we just move?”
Johnny just stared at her.
Down the hall in Mr. James’s apartment, Vanessa had been listening intently to the argument the Grey’s were having, but her Father interrupted her as usual.
“Gal! Gal! Get’ yo’ ass in here and rub my feet!!”
Vanessa James’s Father, Ben James was a big man. A really big man.
A really big, ugly, smelly, nasty, man.
He was the type of man who made sharks cower in fear when he walked by their tanks at the zoo.
“All right! All right! I’m coming! Keep your shirt on!”
“Don’t you sass me girl!”
Vanessa was Celinda’s best friend. She had been since they met in the project playground at age ten. They became inseparable immediately.
Vanessa and Celinda would pour over the fashion magazines weekly. Taking special delight in the photos of beautiful Black models, like Beverly Johnson and Iman.
“Why do I always have to rub your feet? Why can’t mom do it?”
Because your mother’s out in the building birthin’ another baby, that’s why. And because you need to be taught how to be a good wife. I’m going to be marryin’ you off next year missy, so don’t be gettin’ comfortable around here, ya’ hear me?”
“Comfortable” has never been a word Vanessa used to describe her living situation.
Her Father was incredibly abusive to her. Both verbally and physically. Her mother usually kept quiet. Her Father did bring the money home. Like the Grey’s they too were saving for a house.
It was her Father’s “special attention” that Vanessa was beginning to tire of.
“Harder, Gal!! I can’t feel that little bit of ticklin’ your doing down there!”
Ben James was a maintenance man. He spent all day with his feet jammed into very square, very ugly work boots that tore up his feet. He felt it was his daughter’s “duty” to massage the kinks out for him.
Vanessa felt other wise, and unlike her mother, was not in the habit of keeping silent on the subject.
“You know I’m getting’ real tired of this.”
“I don’t want to hear no lip from you girl!”
“Well you’re going to! I don’t know why I have to be the one forever massaging your smelly feet. You a grown man, do it yourself!”
Ben James liked his women healthy. Healthy and silent.
“Bitch! I told you to shut your ass, the hell up!!”
Ben snatched his foot away from Vanessa’s hands and kicked her directly in the stomach. She stumbled backwards and almost knocked the bookcase over.
“Damn you! I told you the last time, I’m not taking anymore of this shit from you, you bastard!!”
She picked up a rather cheap vase and hurled it at him. It flew past his left ear and shattered against the wall behind his Lazy Boy. The noise woke up Mrs. Harris’s infant next door.
“OK missy! That’s it! You ain’t gonna disrespect me and breakup shit in my house too!”
He lunged at her. He missed. He lunged at her again and she ducked under him. He was very slow.
“I hate you! I hate you! And I’m never going to let you touch me again!”
Vanessa stormed into her small room, tears stinging her eyes and fouling her vision.
She had had it.
For sixteen years, she had put up with her Father’s abuse. His yelling at her, his screaming at her, His… touching her. Late at night. In her own bed while her mother was asleep.
She cried at night when he came at her. She cried both for herself and for her mother. Who lay in her marital bed night after night unloved. Starved for the touch of her own husband, while her husband was in his daughter’s room doing the unthinkable.
She found her book bag and stormed to the dresser and started jamming clothes into it.
“Where the hell do you think your going?”
“Any where but here.” There was a new confidence to her voice. She had thought about leaving since the age of thirteen but thought again. He had slacked off her and thought that maybe since she was getting older things had changed. But tonight’s little dance proved that they hadn’t.
“Oh yeah? Where’s that!”
“Anywhere your not. That’s where I’m going.”
“Bitch, you ain’t going nowhere but into that kitchen and fix my dinner! You got me?”
“Yea, I got you.” She said flatly as she continued packing.
He was blocking the door to her bedroom with his immense body. He almost blocked the light from the lamp in the living room. “Well?”
There was a terrifying silence as she stood before him. Her book bag brimmed with hastily packed things. Her back straight, she looked him directly in the eye.
“Please move.” It was almost a whisper.
“Make me.” He grinned down at her. A malicious, filthy grin.
But then, a smile crept slowly across Vanessa’s lips. And with a pretty malicious grin of her own, she took a half step back and kicked her Father directly in the balls.
Ben roared with pain and collapsed to his knees. Vanessa leapt gracefully over his back, her last hurdle to freedom.
With a girlish giggle she was out the door, down the stairs and out the front courtyard of the projects like a shot. She never looked back.
* * *
“Johnny we been saving’ for that house for years now and we still ain’t got it! Why is that?”
“We just ain’t found the right one yet.”
“Johnny all we need is a house! It doesn’t have to be all that special!”
“It does have to be special, damn it!”
“Then why can’t Celinda help us by…”?
“By what? Going to Paris and struttin’ around like a whore?”
“Stop it!”
Celinda couldn’t take it anymore. There she stood in the doorway of the kitchen where they had been arguing for almost an hour now.
Her eyes were huge, her fist clenched and her slim little form was shaking violently.
“I… want… to… go… to… Paris!”
Celinda had never spoken a word in anger to her Father in all her life. She really had no reason too. Johnny Grey had always been the warmest and gentlest of Father’s.
“Celinda?”
“I want to go to Paris! I want to be a model! I want to get out of here! Can’t you understand Daddy? That’s all I ever hear you talking about is that “great day” when we’ll be free of this place! Well I have a chance to do that now! Why can’t I take it?”
“I don’t want my Daughter going off to France and dressing up like some whore!”