Chapter Five #2
In place in the phony window, which didn’t have any glass, Mazelle looked down and surveyed where she had worked for two years: Lorenzo Studios was only a couple of warehouses for the interior sets and a street of fake storefronts.
Hollywood wasn’t at all glamorous from the inside.
Mr. Lorenzo’s office was the only brick building on the lot, and Mazelle saw the side door open as he came to watch the shoot with a cup of coffee.
Mazelle would give him a show, all right.
Beneath her, Jake pointed up to her in the window and jumped up and down, exaggerating his excitement to see her. Jake was the only other kid who didn’t need constant reminding from the Sharpes on how to act out their scenes.
“Now look scared, gang,” Mr. Sharpe said. “What if she burns up in the fire?”
“Should I cry?” Amelia said.
“Sure—pretend to cry.”
“This ain’t pretendin’,” Stan said, irritable. “I’ve got smoke in my eyes!”
“Hurry up, Mazelle,” Millie Sharpe said, although she kept away from the steps and Scout, who was standing behind Mazelle, out of sight from the window outside. “Pretend you’re going to climb out—”
Mazelle jumped from the thin ledge to the top rung of the ladder. She tested the strength of a metal rod above her to help steady her weight when the wooden ladder shook beneath her. Mazelle shifted her weight to control the teetering.
“Jesus!” Mr. Sharpe said. He was staring up with his mouth wide-open. Mazelle glimpsed Mr. Lorenzo dropping his coffee cup. She almost grinned.
“Be careful!” Millie Sharpe called from behind Mazelle, alarmed, but Scout’s bark quieted her.
Although Mazelle enjoyed rocking on the ladder, she gave the camera below a wide-eyed look of terror.
She slid her feet down to the next rung, pretending to fall.
And the next. Below, Amelia screamed. None of them were pretending now.
Mazelle flailed her arms as if she were panicked, the ladder shuddering beneath her. The watching mothers gasped.
As soon as Mazelle let go of the ladder, she knew Scout would grab her by the back of her dress: She knew it as well as she knew her true name.
She felt the fabric rip slightly in the strong pinch of his jaws, but Scout held on as Mazelle kicked the ladder away and she dangled from one arm and Scout’s mouth, swinging back and forth. The ladder fell with a clatter.
Mazelle scraped her knee when she banged it against the scratchy wall while she swung, but she barely felt it.
Scout was stronger than she’d known, but she wasn’t surprised.
When Scout tugged Mazelle back inside, her hands scrabbled on the ledge and she climbed in the rest of the way by herself.
Mazelle laughed with excitement while Scout licked her face.
She barely noticed Millie Sharpe asking her if she was all right, her face ghost-pale instead of red.
Mazelle remembered better than Millie that she was supposed to walk to the open doorway with Scout leading her by the hand, and the smoke was so thick that she needed Scout to guide her.
When Mazelle and Scout emerged from the smoky doorway, the other kids cheered for real. They crowded around Scout to pet him and tell him he was a great dog. Jake gave Mazelle a hug, and everyone else followed his lead, believing he was only acting.
“He’s the best dog in the world!” Stan proclaimed, and Mazelle wished it was a talkie. Maybe they would put it in the title cards.
“Cut!” Mr. Sharpe said. “Jesus Christ, Mazy. You scared me to death!”
Good, Mazelle thought. That was the first time she’d realized she’d wanted them to feel shocked like she had in Mr. Lorenzo’s office.
She’d wanted them to imagine getting shut down or going to jail if she fell.
And it had worked: Mazelle could see it in Mr. Sharpe’s shaken eyes.
Mr. Lorenzo looked furious—but not with her.
When Millie came out behind Mazelle, she rushed to whisper apologies in Mr. Lorenzo’s ear.
When he turned his back to Mazelle to talk to them privately, she smiled at the Sharpes to let them see she was glad they were in trouble.
Mr. Sharpe wiped sweat from his face with his hands.
The mothers gathered around Scout to celebrate him with dog biscuits, and no one noticed his muddy swamp smell, or didn’t complain if they did.
Everyone flocked to them except Mrs. Wu, who held Danny in the shade of an awning, cooing to calm her son’s tears, away from the thinning smoke.
Keeping her son as far as she could from Scout.
Mother, it turned out, had asthma.
The doctor ordered her to stay in the hospital overnight so they could watch her and make sure she was ready to come home.
Because no one under fourteen was allowed to visit the hospital—and Daddy told her she had to get her rest for the next day’s shoot—Mazelle had to stay at home instead of visiting Mother with Daddy, Doris, and Dottie.
Aunt Ruby was the only one left to watch Mazelle and make sure she went to bed, a bad day made worse.
Mazelle washed the terrible smell of the smoke from her skin, but it clung to her hair—and Mother wasn’t here to fix it, so she couldn’t wash it.
Despite her too-brief triumph on the ladder, Mazelle felt heavy to her bones when she remembered the events of the day.
She’d cried when Gram died, and when her friends lost their contracts, but a new depth of sadness chewed at her because she could only blame herself.
In the silence of night in her room, she felt ashamed for wanting to horrify Mr. Lorenzo and the Sharpes.
Did Jake think she was unprofessional after her outburst over her name?
Was Mr. Lorenzo going to replace her and Scout with a more obedient kid with a dog, even if the dog wasn’t as special as Scout?
Worst of all: If Mazelle hadn’t been so shocked at Millie Sharpe’s darky voice, wouldn’t Mother have been less upset too?
Mazelle could have said, Sure, it’s just acting, after all and read the dumb words like she was supposed to.
She already had her hair fixed like a pickaninny, so why would it be bad to play the part?
Tears scalded Mazelle’s eyes, worse than the smoke.
Outside of Mazelle’s window, Scout whined from the porch, sounding as sad as she felt.
She cried, hugging her pillow over her face so Aunt Ruby wouldn’t have the satisfaction of hearing how sad she was.
Scout’s whining turned to a throaty howl, like a wolf lost from its pack.
I wish Scout could come inside with me, Mazelle thought.
Her door flung open. Mazelle sat up with a gasp, expecting to see Scout in her doorway. Instead, Aunt Ruby was silhouetted in the hallway light.
“Tell that damn dog to hush that racket,” Aunt Ruby said. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Mazelle didn’t answer, sniffling. Her throat felt so stuffed with tears that she doubted she could make a sound. Scout howled more loudly. She could have silenced him with a thought, but the raw loneliness and pain in Scout’s sad song was in perfect harmony with her own.
“Did you hear me? Better shut him up, or I’ll go out there and—”
“You won’t do anything to Scout, you stupid cow!” Mazelle shrieked. The words tore at her throat. Her rage at Aunt Ruby’s unwillingness to love her made her body shake. Aunt Ruby hadn’t hugged her or said a kind word since the news about Mother.
On the porch, Scout was barking. A bang sounded against the front door.
At first, Aunt Ruby stood in the doorway completely still, and Mazelle dared to hope that all she’d needed to do all this time was put her in her place.
“Nigger gal—what did you just say to me?” Aunt Ruby said.
Mazelle had been called that awful word by a few passing children in Gracetown, but never by another Negro.
Mother and Daddy hated that word. Mother had read her a poem called “Incident” by Countee Cullen about what a terrible word it was, and she already knew she would remember this night with Aunt Ruby for the rest of her life, just like the boy in the poem.
“Leave me alone!” Mazelle said. She couldn’t raise her voice, already hoarse.
“You think you’re gonna call me names ’cause you’re in the papers? You think you’re too good for a whipping? They’ve spoiled you to death. Well, no more!”
Instinct told Mazelle to jump out of her bed to run, but Aunt Ruby’s reflexes were quick for someone with so much gray in her hair. Aunt Ruby wrapped a large palm around Mazelle’s arm and yanked her until her feet dragged on the floor. She dragged her toward her doorway.
“Ow!” Mazelle protested. “Stop! You’re hurting me!”
While Aunt Ruby pulled Mazelle past the foyer to the living room, then to the dining room, and then the kitchen, Scout’s paws thumped on the front door as he barked from the porch.
Each time Aunt Ruby tugged, Mazelle had to fight for her footing so she wouldn’t be dragged like Danny Wu on the blanket.
Her nightshirt bunched up over her thighs, exposing her nakedness.
Every wrench from Aunt Ruby hurt her shoulder and seemed to pull her a mile.
She rarely was alone with Aunt Ruby, and no one in her life had manhandled her this way. Why had she pulled her into the kitchen? What was she going to do to her there? For the first time, Mazelle was afraid for her life in her own house.
Mazelle gathered air in her lungs and hoped the neighbors would hear. “Stop it!”
The kitchen floor was cold against Mazelle’s bare soles. The only light was from the open door to Aunt Ruby’s room, so Mazelle didn’t see her pick up the steel cooking spoon until she felt the pain from Aunt Ruby’s blows across her bare thighs and buttocks.
“Don’t… you… ever… sass back at me!” Aunt Ruby said, punctuating each word with the spoon.
Compared to the blunt sting of the hairbrush, the thin spoon was a fiery whip. Mazelle screamed, sure she must be bleeding.
The beating only stopped when they heard the growling.