A Matter of Souls Read Online Free PDF Page A

repeated, and then paused. “Miss Clotille … You think it would seem proper if I was to step out with JC?”
    Hazel had tried to ask the question without the edge of hesitation in her voice, but failed. She sucked in her bottom lip and blinked in Miss Clotille’s direction, knowing that Miss Clotille was fully aware of her own power.
    â€œIf you
were
to step out?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œIs that Johnson Johnson you’re speaking of?” Miss Clotille asked. “The boy who cuts my grass?”
    â€œYes, ma’am!” Hazel answered quickly. “But JC only does that part-time. He’s a full-time janitor over at the Normal College, and he’s a fine piano player!”
    Miss Clotille blinked just once. “Not in a juke joint, I hope!”
    Hazel shook her head vigorously. “Oh, no! He plays both services over at Galilee Baptist Church. His mama is choir director!” Hazel thought, then added, “He is a very upstanding gentleman.”
    â€œWell, then, if you know that, dear, you certainly don’t need any permission from me. What do your parents think of him?”
    Hazel didn’t exactly want to say that, though her mother was lukewarm over it, her father was pleased as punch over possibly having one of his girls walk down theaisle—even though Hazel had never done as much as sing a solo to JC’s accompaniment at nine o’clock service.
    â€œThey don’t have no complaints,” she said honestly.
    â€œ
Any
complaints. Good. He has asked you out, I suppose? Where to?”
    â€œEr … to the movies next weekend,” Hazel lied. The dance was at the juke joint.
    â€œYou have a good time.”
    Hazel smiled as she hooked the back of Miss Clotille’s magenta chiffon. She floated out of the room, lifted by expectation and filled with imaginative plans.

    â€œGirl, what in the devil are you still
doing
in there? I gotta work a night shift!” Jurdine’s whine was more shrill than usual. She hated the night shift, she said, because by then the chickens’ stink had turned into a vapor that seeped into her hair and skin.
    Hazel was thankful to God that she didn’t have that job, though it allowed her sister to own two pairs of fancy dress shoes and get her hats custom made.
    â€œHazel Mozella, if you don’t come out of there, I’m gonna call Daddy!”
    Hazel smirked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and continued to rub the skin cream slathered onto her face in slow, circular movements. The instructions said to coat the skin evenly for best effects. And so far, theproduct had worked beautifully; she wasn’t going to mess it up now!
    â€œMAAAMMMAAA!” Jurdine was banging harder.
    Hazel ran the cold water and splashed it up, reaching for a clean facecloth. Her fingers tingled as they grabbed the dry square. Mama Vee must have used too much bleach again, she thought, patting her cheeks dry.
    There was a swift clicking of heels on the linoleum outside the door, and Hazel hurried to push the glass jar back inside its box and shove the box into a brown paper bag. She checked herself in the mirror and turned on the faucet to rinse the sink.
    â€œGal, you hold your sister up from making money and I’ma take it out of your black behind!” Mama Vee barked, and Hazel’s bones rattled along with the window. She tossed the bag into the half-full laundry hamper and quickly fluffed up her father’s dirty work pants on top. Taking a deep breath, she flushed the toilet and opened the door.
    Jurdine huffed and pushed past. Hazel noticed curiously that she was wearing perfume. She didn’t bother to comment, though. Mama Vee’s stern gray-green eyes were burning in her yellow face.
    â€œWhy you stay up in that mirror, I do not know,” she said, narrowing those eyes at Hazel. “Lookin’ won’t make you no lighter!”
    Long ago, Hazel had taught herself