Dancing in the Dark by Caryl Phillips

the more determined to conquer Lottie’s head. Florence had “good” hair that flowed out to her shoulders, and inch by inch, her grandmother teased it down her younger sister’s back. However, despite years of this tugging and pulling and rubbing and creaming, her own hair remained stubbornly short and knotted. Of course, her resentment of the Saturday afternoon ritual meant that Lottie never truly engaged with the Lord’s day, although she could not admit to this. However, what caused her the most sorrow was the fact that over time a chasm grew between herself and Florence. While she could never bring herself to blame her sister for the death of their mother in childbirth, she took exception to the manner in which Florence flaunted her tresses and silently mocked her less fortunate older sister. Their grandmother seemed to delight in reminding them both that Florence resembled their father, with the same light blue eyes and “good” hair, but neither of them knew whether this was true or not for neither sister had ever set eyes on the man. They knew (but how they knew they were not sure) that he was a tall, good-looking gambling man from across the river who worked the boats, often going down as far as New Orleans in search of his thrills, and they had also heard the persistent rumors that he had once killed a man. But over the years the gulf between the two sisters grew wide and they seldom spoke about their father, or their mother, or about anything that mattered. As a young girl Lottie sang and danced, which was her way of hiding herwounded self, while Florence simply stood still but seemed pleased with herself that she seemed to be attracting the attention of strutting older boys. Hardly a week passed by without their anxious grandmother taking Florence to one side and chiding her for her wanton behavior, but soon little else seemed to matter to Flo, not church, not her big sister, and certainly nothing that the ailing old woman might say to her. When their grandmother finally died, leaving the two teenage girls alone with nobody to look out for them, Lottie tried to play both mother and grandmother but it was too late. Florence, her hair now down to her waist, had grown as wild as her grandmother had feared, and fasttalking Teddy Washington had already entered her life with his gun-toting, mannish ways. He had long been determined to make young Flo his woman , and within a month of their grandmother’s funeral the child in Flo’s thirteen-year-old belly suggested that Mr. Washington had already succeeded. A year later Lottie took off for Chicago, and a life on the stage, but by then her sister was already carrying her second child and looking ten years older than her true age. Lottie found decent lodgings in Chicago, and a job in a show that presented colored people in a respectable light. She also found a woman who was prepared to take on the challenge of her hair, but after eagerly accepting a great deal of Lottie’s money, this woman was ultimately forced to admit defeat. However, some men still found Lottie attractive company and sought her out, but the young dancer was not in any hurry to find herself attached to a husband. She finally kindled an affection for the Lord, and the church became her constant companion until Mr. Sam Thompson began to appear at the theater each evening. After every performance he made a habit of waiting for her by the stage door, but not with plaintive, hopeful eyes like the other men who loitered in the narrow alleyway. This man waited with a silver-topped cane in his gloved hand, and a chinheld high, and eyes clear and bright, and a voice so deep it sounded like a train rumbling by.
    Eventually Florence had three children, all girls, and all by Mr. Washington, but before the third child declared itself, her beau disappeared and she had no idea if he would ever return to her. To begin with she asked around, venturing into drinking dens that she knew he used, and although she