You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down_ Stories - Alice Walker [64]
“Gotcha,” said Irene. She was so drunk by now that she understood everything Anastasia said as if she’d thought it herself. But she also forgot it at once.
“Now, tell me about Fania Whosis? I want to know all about her,” said Anastasia.
“No,” said Irene, “I’m too drunk.”
“I’ll order coffee,” said Anastasia. “I also have to go to the toilet.”
“So do I,” said Irene, feeling her stomach muscles rebel against her control-top panty hose.
When they returned, a pitcher of coffee shaped like a moose’s head awaited them. Irene was still mopping her face and neck with a wet paper towel, and Anastasia was taking a small container of honey from her handbag. She did not eat sugar.
For ten minutes they drank the strong coffee in silence. Eventually, their heads began to clear.
For the first time, Irene was aware of the people in the booth directly behind them. Fifteen years ago, a man’s voice said, they weren’t allowed in places like this. No dogs, Eskimos or Indians Allowed. That’s terrible, a woman’s voice replied. Especially since it was their country, a young man spoke, sneeringly. But we developed it, said the young woman, in sisterly explanation. Oh, sure, said the young man. How can a woman say something so stupid? You’ve been developed yourself, only you’re so dumb you think you like it. The older woman’s voice, attempting to keep the peace, spoke up, changing the subject. Is it really all that much bigger than Texas? Oh, way bigger, said the older man with pride.
All Irene had known about Alaska she’d read in an Edna Ferber novel. Now she had learned about gigantic turnips, colossal watermelons, marijuana that was not only legally grown, harvested and used, but that regularly grew twenty feet tall in the hot, intensely productive summers. She had learned that parkas were way beyond her budget and that mukluks made her feet sweat. The Eskimos and Indians she saw on the street looked like any oriental San Franciscan. Now her mind stuck on fifteen years ago, and her own witnessing of similar signs coming down in the South. But the signs had already done their work. For as long as she lived she knew she would be intimidated by fancy restaurants, hotels, even libraries, from which she had been excluded before.
“It’s nice to look at you. To tell you I enjoy the way you look.” Anastasia reached over and caressed Irene’s cheek. Then she got up, bent over Irene, and very deliberately gave her a kiss, pressing her lips firmly against the warm, jasmine-smelling brown skin. “I always envied you, before,” she said.
“It’s supposed to be the other way around,” said Irene, smiling.
“It was so miserable, growing up, not resembling any of my friends. Resembling, instead, the people they hated! And oh, black people were so confused. They showed me in every way they envied me because my color and my hair made things ‘easy’ for me, but those other people, with hair and skin like mine, they despised, and took every opportunity to tell me so. And another thing, I’m really rather homely, even funny-looking. But I was convinced very early that I was a beauty. I was never permitted an accurate reflection of myself.”
“Why do I think you must have enjoyed it, at least a little?” asked Irene.
“Of course I was glad to be the ‘princess’ for a long time,” said Anastasia. “I don’t deny it. But never without such feelings of guilt. Why was I picked to be Snow White, Cinderella, and any other white lady in distress, when all my classmates were better actresses? Why did the boys flock to me,