First chance she got, she said to Lily, “Lily Bea! You ain’t bein no fool and doin nothin that would make Maddy quit you and throw you back home on me, are you?! Cause there ain’t no room here for another grown woman! You betta think about what you got! Security! And a place of business, and a home. That ole cripple ain’t gonna live too much longer, then it all be yours!”
Lily thought to herself, “Once a person has a dream almost coming true, and a future that looks brighter than any star I have ever seen, that ole security is not enough to stop my dream. It may not be an apple made of gold, and it don’t have to be. But my dream is getting more golden every day.”
The days passed along slowly, but, at last, the day did come for Lily Bea to leave. Weldon had thought it best to start a divorce for her, so the business would be “hers.” The papers were ready to be served. Her new, small, but very nice apartment was clean and airy, with a view of a lake. She danced around that apartment each time she carried a few of her belongings and books there. She had so little to take with her, her husband had not noticed anything was gone.
Maddy had been carrying his anger around daily. It showed in his body language, as they say. It was in his eyes and certainly in his voice. He had talked down to her so long, he couldn’t find a way to put any softness or tenderness in his voice. He was, also, realizing he loved her, “or somethin.”
He hadn’t really believed she would leave him, at first. He couldn’t know anything for certain, but he was having such strong feelings about her leaving him. He thought she was just being used and lied to. “Who would want her enough to do somethin like give her a position? she keep lyin about? and take her away from her husband? Her own business? Where was her brain? Don’t she know she have somethin here? Security? And a future? Nobody else was gonna love her; she was ugly.”
Maddy wasn’t too sure about her ugliness anymore. Now that she was never there, she had begun to look better to him. He sighed, thinking, “Now, I’m the husband! And I’m gonna have to pay somebody to help me round here, while she help somebody else. Somethin ain’t right!” He was hating her, but he was loving her at the same time.
He had told her, “You know if you take that position, and it’s a fool thing to do, cause you got your own position here. You own it. You the boss here. I ain’t that hard to get along with. And . . . we both got . . . things that don’t look good to other people. But we still got each other. If you let me make more love to you, you wouldn’t be actin like this. I know what’s wrong wit’cha! You need some lovin, girl!”
Lily kept, always, her voice low, soft. The Bible said a soft word turns away wrath. She tried to remain silent, to never say anything at all. She would smile gently at Maddy. Smiling was easier to do, now that she was leaving him. She could not find hate in her heart anyway, it was too happy. She just, quietly, kept moving into her new life.
On her last day, she looked around the ole Clean Cleaners, her “home” for more than seven years. She talked to herself before she talked to Maddy. “Today, today is my last day, my last hours, here where my life has lived and died, for my mama. Now, I’m alive again. No more dim, empty, pitiful life with a pitiful man in this dim, pitiful shop with the washing machine in back. Cheating people.” She sighed at life. “Oh, God, I don’t want to be sinful or wicked. I don’t want to be a sinner, but must I suffer here, in this place, to live right? I didn’t want this . . . marriage. I never loved Maddy. You said honor your mother; and I did what she said. Now, I want to honor myself, and always honor You. I don’t think you mean misery for me, or anyone. I can’t stay here. I must go,” she sighed, “into some light, some air. Fragrant light air, and days. I’ll work hard. I’ll go to church more. I love You. I’m afraid to thank You; You might not have sent Weldon. But, I pray You are in this with me. I don’t want to live against You. I love You. I am being driven through my life by my life itself.”
When she sat down with Maddy, she told him, “Sometimes a chance comes along in life to realize your dreams. I have to go, Maddy.”
Maddy looked stupefied. “It ain’t nothin but a job. Is that your dream? You got a dream right here then. You own your job here, Lily.”
Lily Bea shook her head, gently. “It’s not the same thing, Maddy.”
He almost snarled, “You takin my work for that man from me!”
“I’m taking nothing, Maddy. I’m leaving everything here.”
“You leavin everything here? I paid for everything you got, Lily!”
Her voice was less soft. “I worked here too. I’m leaving everything but my books and a few personal, small things.”
“I knew you didn’t love me! You a bitch! You never did love me!”
After a moment’s silence, Lily said, “I believe I loved you as much as you loved me.”
“You a lyin bitch, bitch!”
She tilted her head, saying, “Do you really think you are worth lying to?”
He stood up over her. “Are you gettin a divorce, too?!”
Slowly, Lily stood up also. She thought, “I don’t want to lie, but I can’t tell him now. He is angry and we are alone. I must stay calm and smooth.” She listened to the sound of every word he said; she watched, and felt, every breath he took. At last, she said, “I’m not thinking of a divorce.” Which was almost true, she was thinking of his anger. And leaving.
She moved away from him, toward the door, as she put on her little rabbit-fur coat, then she turned around, came back, and, for the first time, she hugged him. “Good-bye.”
When the door closed behind her, Maddy sat down and stared at the last place she had been standing. He started rocking in his chair; it was not a rocking chair. He rocked and rocked. Then he cried. Hard, little, broken sobs, from a hard, little, broken man.
Lily Bea drove to her mother’s house; she parked the car at some distance and walked the rest of the way. Her caution was instinctual; she just didn’t feel it was time to let everyone know all her business.
In the recent past, Sorty had lost two of her children: a son to AIDS, a daughter to alcoholism. There was only one daughter besides Lily Bea left, the pretty one, Reella. Reella had four children, and was on her way to alcoholism.
Now, here was Lily Bea telling her she was going to leave Maddy. Sorty looked at Lily a long moment, took a long drink, put her glass down, and said, “What’s going on in your head? You done read all the books, and lost your mind. You leavin a good man, with a good business?”
Sorty looked up to heaven, saying, “Lord, I done give birth to a pure-dee fool!” Lily sighed, but said nothing. Looking in her glass, Sorty continued, “All my children’s almost gone!” She took a swallow, looked at Lily, and said, “Two children left and one done lost her mind!”
Sadly, Lily looked at her mother, saying, “Their way was clear when they were born; their exit almost came with their entrance into this world.”
Sorty looked at her, snapping, “You damn right! You right, but you ain’t good-lookin at all, and you the one that have a home and a future with security. And you gettin ready to be a fool! If you was smart, you’ud keep Maddy. He’s your last chance! And he ain’t gonna help me with my rent no more! What you gonna do bout that!?”
Lily sat on the edge of a chair, saying, “Why don’t you go to work for him, Mama? He needs a helper.”
Sorty snorted, “You his helper! Lily Bea, you ain’t bein no fool and doin nothin that would make Maddy really quit you, and throw you back home, here on me, are you? You are Maddy’s true wife! Before God and everybody! You his wife!”
“Well, I have decided to be my own wife, my own everything.”
“You a selfish bastard, Lily.”
Lily sighed, saying, “You know, Mama, when I was young I had a little flame in me. I wanted to do something with my life, but you took that flame, burned me with it until I burned down to ashes. Now you want me to stay where you put me, for your advantage, until I’m only a little pile of ashes. I’m trying to get that flame back. I don’t want to be just ashes.” She stood up as she continued, “I want to give you an address; if you drop a note to me, I will call you.”
“Call me!? What good that gonna do me? Who gonna help me with some money? Who you goin to work for anyway?”
“That is not important.”
Sorty laughed an ugly laugh. “Yes, ma’am, it is! Who gon help me? Is it that white man who pretendin he like you? And lettin you run over other people’s lives? He teachin you to be white?”
“It’s a job, Mama, that’s all.”
“Then why can’t I know where it’s at?”
“There is nothing there for you. I don’t want you coming there.”
“You shamed of me?”
“No more than you are of me.”
Sorty took another swallow. “I never been shamed of you. Are you goin to help me? From your new job?”
“I’ll have to see what I need first.”
“You put yourself before me? Your mother?”
“Mama, I have learned that seems to be the way things go with you.”
Sorty sighed.
Lily turned to go. “I’m going. You’ll hear from me, Mama.”
“Well, bring me, or send me, some money. And remember, I love you; you my chile. You can always count on me. That’s why you know I’m tellin you the truth when I tell you to stay with that good man you got. I didn’t have to worry bout my rent; he’ll change now.”
As Lily Bea went out her mother’s door, she said, “You know, Mama, you can have him. I wouldn’t mind at all. At least, go to work for him. I don’t know when I’ll have some way to give you your rent.” She looked at her watch. “I have to go now. I’m late.”
Sorty, ever alert, asked, “You drivin a car? Whose car?”
Lily started closing the door behind her. “You take care yourself, Mama; I’ll take care of myself.”
Sorty hollered at her, “You a ungrateful bastard!”
Just before Lily closed the door, she said, “I may be a bastard, Mama.” The door shut, Lily was gone.
Sorty upended her glass as she watched Lily walk away. “That bast— that bitch got a car!” Sorty had never had a car. She fixed a fresh drink (she always had money for that), sat down in a worn chair, staring at the door through which her rent, and help, had gone. She didn’t rock, she just stared and stared at that space. She was trying to think of a new way. A new way to live.
Maddy was finally served the divorce papers. He stared at them as if they were from Mars. Then he closed the cleaners, and ran to her mother’s house. Waving the papers, he told Sorty, “Lily might as well never try to come back to me and my bizness. That’s all over now! I don’t know what she’d have to do when she come back.”
Sorty looked at Maddy hopefully, saying, “Well, she is comin back! Just wait till she find out how cold them people really is, out there in this world! She’ll realize what she had here at home! We’ll see her behind coming back, yet!”
But Sorty could not really help Maddy. The one time she had seen her since Lily left, Lily never did speak of her plans. She had been quiet, listening to her mother tell her, “Girl, you better come on back home to Maddy! Wake up, and smell the money, honey!”
Lily Bea just lived on in the reality of her new world. She worked hard during the day. Mr. Forest did not really have to be there. She had decided to always call him “Mr. Forest” around his employees. He appreciated her sensibility. But he was there at every reasonable opportunity, smiling, suggesting, helping in some way. He was never not a gentleman.
One thing Weldon noticed was that all the businesspeople they had appointments with, even the deliverymen who came to the new shop, never looked at Lily Bea with any interest at all. Didn’t even look into her face long. Over time, though, he noticed as her nervousness went away, as Lily Bea’s joy in the business bloomed on her face, they looked long at her smile. They even asked extra, unnecessary questions just to hear her voice.
Mr. Jacob, the jeweler from next door, visited often just to ask her questions. Weldon pondered as he watched the change. They were attracted to her! Just as he was! He began to guard her, tried always to be there if a few special businessmen were due. She did not belong to him, but she was his. This beautiful woman.
He opened accounts for her. “You have to be very well dressed in such a business; it’s especially good for our kind of business.” She had better sense than to go too far. She did not look too sophisticated, nor too much a counterperson. She looked just right in her simple, classic styles. Smart, plain black shoes with two-inch heels. Lily Bea’s brains were almost popping out of her head, it was filled with so much joy. “It’s like my own fairy tale.”
The flyers about the grand opening had gone out, as well as invitations to some customers. She hadn’t wanted to use her name, Lily, in the shop’s name. It might lead Maddy and her mama to her. She chose to name it “the Flowers,” a “Specialty Cleaning Shop.” Besides the cleaning of delicates, it was stocked with items of fragile, lacy female things to purchase, and even some exquisite silk ties for men.
The evening of the opening he took her out to an early dinner. Well, what could be more innocent? Their friendship was still an innocent one. But he was old enough, and wealthy enough, not to care what talk would come from seeing him out with a young Negro lady smiling across a table at him. “We are business partners.”
He smiled down at her as he asked, “Wear something nice, Lily. One of your new dresses, with the respectably lowered neck-line, the buyer just sent over to you. Please?”
She had laughed, saying, “Of course. I needed help to know what to wear to the opening anyway.”
Quite a few older, bored people, and those with business interests, came to the opening. Champagne and finger foods were served by formal waiters. Well, they were serving the “best” people, the richest women in the city, the larger department store owners and their wives. Mr. Jacob, the jeweler, came without his wife. “She had another appointment,” he said, chewing on crackers and crab, and staring at Lily Bea.
Lily was dressed smartly, in good business taste. Her funny little body looked very attractive. Her shyness and happiness showed in her face, flowing from her smile. Many of the women saw only ugliness in a nice dress when they looked at her. Many of the gentlemen were much attracted to her. They listened closely, carefully, to every word she said about the shop and its services.