Mrs. Bullis’s eyes rake over the list and then she blows outa breath that reminds me of Frederick. “These are not women’s concerns, they are colored concerns.”
“They’re not colored concerns, they’re human concerns, and women make up half the humans. If we all work together, we can make some real change. Laws that fix the bad smell. Laws that give us rights to keep our property, instead of letting good-for-nothing husbands gamble it away. You want that, don’t you?”
Mrs. Bullis’s teapot face blows steam. “How dare you! Mary?”
Mary jerks, eyes wide.
Noemi knots her shawl tight over her solid arms and keeps her gaze fixed on Mrs. Bullis’s chin. “Mary didn’t tell about your situation, Mrs. Bullis. It’s well-known, is all.”
Mrs. Bullis reels up her nose as high as it will go, eyes searching out a good place to cast her hook. “You’ll have to wait your turn,allof you”—she glares at me—“just like we did. Your men got the vote, but most sold it for drinking money. Now it’s our turn.”
The room has gone silent. You would probably hear the drop of a needle if one were to fall. On the other side of the room, Lizzie’s face is stretched long, though Mrs. English is staring through the ceiling, maybe wondering why she is here and not home soaking her feet.
Noemi rocks from side to side, but when she speaks, her voice is even as steel tracks. “If any did sell their votes, they likely did so only because they thought it made no difference how they cast them. A greased pig isn’t worth much if you can’t hold on to it long enough to make bacon.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re verging on impertinence.”
Noemi takes her time filling her lungs, her lowered gaze taking in all the eyes cooling on her. “Ma’am, what I’m saying is, we got plenty of good women waiting to cast our ballots and make things right again for everyone. And we’re going to keep pulling for ballots, whether you let us or not.”
A collective gasp sweeps through the room, and then whispers start up.
Mrs. Bullis’s marigold sash whips through the air, a jag of lightning. “I think it’s time you leave. You, too, Mary. Go back home and work on the curtains like I asked.”
Mary’s head is bowed, exposing the bumps of her neck bones.
“Mary, do you hear me?”
Rose bites off thread with her teeth and mutters, “She hears you.” She squints hard enough to tangle her lashes, and it’s as if she were trying to keep her vexation from seeping out her eyes.
Mary unbends her neck, and I’m reminded of a bird unfolding. She gathers her gray skirts and rises. “I don’t want to do the curtains right now, Mrs. Bullis.”
“Don’t want to do... ,” Mrs. Bullis echoes, looking wildly around her as if she could be the butt of a joke. “Well, then you...” Her eyes fall upon the embroidered half-horse, and she sucks in her sentence. A good seamstress can be hard to find. Especially with so many vultures waiting to swoop in. “All of you, go. Just go!”
Noemi’s nostrils flare, and I would not be surprised to see smoke curling out of them. She snatches her list back from Mrs.Bullis. With her head held not too high, nor too low, she crosses to the exit.
We file behind her, each passing over a creaky floorboard. The shame that warms my cheeks feels more diffuse than it did at age thirteen, and I gather it in my hands and set it in a corner. Maybe self-worth is something we grow into day by day, the way a spine elongates and calcifies. Hammer Foot once said that people don’t lack strength, they lack the will. As I follow Noemi and her friends out the door of the Grace Baptist Church, I muse he wasn’t talking about these ladies, whose iron wills may not shine, but do ring when hammered.
—
THE STREETLAMPS FLICKERas we pass by, and a three-quarter moon keeps its eye on us. Rose slips an arm around Mary, who sways a little on her feet. “Well, that was a bust. I didn’t even get to finish my stitches.”
“Just what were you stitching anyway?” asks Noemi. “A squirrel?”
“Nope.” Rose throws a grin back at us.
“A pinecone?” I offer, but she shakes her head.
“Oh no, Rose, you didn’t,” says Mary.
“I did. They deserve a few patty cakes. Maybe next time, they’ll think twice about giving us the back end of the horse.”
The night is cool but not cold. Water droplets hang in the air, blowing wet kisses at our cheeks as we walk.
“We should form our own society,” Noemi says quietly from beside me.
Rose snorts. “Please, Noemi. Not until I’ve had a hot bath.”
A voice calls after us. “Jo! Wait, Jo?”
