Free Clover by Dori Sanders

I picked up some of the pretty little sketches on drawing paper, and forgot and left them out on the back door steps.
    We looked everywhere for the sketches. We even took everything out of her big zippered artist portfolio. It’s more like a briefcase for a giant. I just had a notion the sketches may have been there, but we never did find them. The white Federal Express truck came and left without them.
    Well, Sara Kate was really, really angry with me that time. And she didn’t mind letting me know it, either. “Clover,” she fussed, “those sketches were to be sent to a company who wants me to design a line of fancy wrapping paper. I spoke with a man from the company and promised him he’d have the sketches tomorrow. There is good money in that, Clover, and right now we can use it.”
    Her mad spell didn’t last too long. But, oh boy, let metell you something, when a white woman gets mad, she gets mad.
    Sara Kate finally smiled and sucked in her breath when I said, “Well, Sara Kate, maybe the next day won’t be too late. If you had all them pretty flowers and things in your head in the first place you ought to be able to find them again. At least we can find your head. It’s not lost, that’s for sure.”
    I still can’t see how Sara Kate can stand so much sitting down all the time. If she isn’t drawing or painting, she’s writing. No wonder her hips are so flat.
    Anyway, I’ve left the papers alone for good. If Sara Kate is writing something bad about us, I don’t want to find out.
    A little girl about my age is screaming at her mama to hurry up and buy the peaches so they can go to McDonalds. She has blue, blue eyes and hair I guess they call blonde. It sure looks white to me, though.
    â€œPlease wait, darling,” says her mama sweetly, “we’ll go as soon as I buy the peaches.”
    â€œI don’t like peaches,” the little girl screams. “I hate peaches.”
    I put a peck of peaches on the back seat of their car, one of them new Toyota jobs. The white-haired girl sticks her tongue out at me. I stick mine out right back at her. Shemakes a face as they drive away. All I can say is, if she does that to me at school, she’ll get her lights punched out. She’ll probably go to one of those private church schools they started setting up when the public schools started getting so many black principals.
    Gideon’s sister and her husband thought after they got high-paying jobs at Duke Power Company they would send their kids to one of those schools. But Everleen said the good old Baptists had no room for good old black Baptists. And to this day, there is not a single black there.
    About a half a mile up the road, the signal light on an old Buick blinks for a left turn. A line of cars and eighteen-wheeled trucks brake and screech behind the Buick, slowly snaking its way to the turnoff.
    â€œLord, Lord,” Everleen groans, “Mary Martha is gonna get herself run clean over, crawling along that busy highway. A cooter could travel faster than that.”
    Mary Martha has to put both feet on the ground and hold onto the door frame in order to pull her fat body out of the car. She has the body of a woman, but her face is a girl’s face.
    â€œI don’t know why I’m buying peaches,” she complained. “I’m so tired of working in these poor white folks’ kitchens, I ain’t got the strength to make a pie.”
    â€œHuh,” Everleen grunts, “you and Miss Katie’s the only ones still doing it that I know of.”
    â€œI know, I know. But, Everleen, what else can I do? I’m too worn out to go into one of the mills to work. James Roy’s got a right good job, but we got not one, but four chaps to get ready for school. To tell you the truth, I need another little job.”
    Everleen tilts her head upwards and laughs about something that’s making her tickled before