Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [69]
Maybe if I had stayed in Memphis last summer it never would have happen. But I spent the summer fixing up the house. I thought if you come anytime soon, I want it to be ready. And it is real pretty, now, and comfortable. And I found me a nice lady to live in it and look after it. Then I come home to Shug.
Miss Celie, she say, how would you like some Chinese food to celebrate your coming home?
I loves Chinese food. So off us go to the restaurant. I'm so excited about being home again I dont even notice how nervous Shug is. She a big graceful woman most of the time, even when she mad. But I notice she can't git her chopsticks to work right. She knock over her glass of water. Somehow or nother her eggroll come unravel.
But I think she just so glad to see me. So I preen and pose for her and stuff myself with wonton soup and fried rice.
Finally the fortune cookies come. I love fortune cookies. They so cute. And I read my fortune right away. It say, because you are who you are, the future look happy and bright.
I laugh. Pass it on to Shug. She look at it and smile. I feel at peace with the world.
Shug pull her slip of paper out real slow, like she scared of what might be on it.
Well? I say, watching her read it. What it say?
She look down at it, look up at me. Say, It say I got the hots for a boy of nineteen.
Let me see, I say, laughing. And I read it out loud. A burnt finger remember the fire, it say.
I'm trying to tell you, Shug say.
Trying to tell me what? I'm so dense it still don't penetrate, For one thing, it been a long time since I thought about boys and I ain't never thought about men.
Last year, say Shug, I hired a new man to work in the band. I almost didn't because he cant play nothing but flute. And who ever heard of blues flute? I hadn't. The very notion sound crazy. But it was just my luck that blues flute is the one thing blues music been lacking and the minute I heard Germaine play I knew this for a fact.
Germaine? I ast.
Yeah, she say, Germaine. I don't know who gave him that flittish name, but it suit him.
Then she start right in to rave about this boy. Like all his good points have to be stuff I'm dying to hear.
Oh, she say. He little. He cute. Got nice buns. You know, real bantu. She so used to telling me everything she rattle on and on, gitting more excited and in-love looking by the minute. By the time she finish talking about his neat little dancing feet and git back up to his honey brown curly hair, I feel like shit.
Hold it, I say. Shug, you killing me. She halt in mid-praise. Her eyes fill with tears and her face crumple. Oh God, Celie, she say. I'm sorry. I just been dying to tell somebody, and you the somebody I usually tell.
Well, I say, if words could kill, I'd be in the ambulance.
She put her face in her hands and start to cry. Celie, she say, through her fingers, I still love you.
But I just sit there and watch her. Seem like all my wonton soup turn to ice.
Why you so upset? she ast, when us got back home. You never seem to git upset bout Grady. And he was my husband.
Grady never bring no sparkle to your eye, I think. But I don't say nothing, I'm too far away.
Course, she say, Grady so dull, Jesus. And when you finish talking bout women and reefer you finish Grady. But still, she say.
I don't say nothing.
She try to laugh. I was so glad he lit out after Mary Agnes I didn't know what to do, she say. I don't know who tried to teach him what to do in the bedroom, but it must have been a furniture salesman.
I don't say nothing. Stillness, coolness. Nothingness. Coming fast.
You notice when they left here together going to Panama I didn't shed a tear? But now really, she say, what they gon look like in Panama?
Poor Mary Agnes, I think. How could anybody guess old dull Grady would end up running a reefer plantation in Panama?
Course they making boocoos of money, say Shug. And Mary Agnes outdress everybody down there, the way she tell it in her letters.
And at least Grady let her sing. What little snatches of her songs she can still remember. But really,