The Path Was Steep by Suzanne Pickett Page A

smiled.
    Opal, the next daughter, was short and plump in exciting places. Opal had dark skin, bold black eyes under heavy black brows, and blue-black hair.
    “Opal takes after her paw,” Mrs. Cranford said. “I loved the sonofabitch, but he’s dead now,” matter of factly.
    I choked on a bite of potato.
    A boarder, coming in late, hit Opal on a tempting spot. Eyes flashing, she returned the blow. Laughing, he pulled her hair. She grabbed a knife from the table, and he fled to the kitchen.
    “She’ll marry him one day,” Mrs. Cranford said, pouring David a second cup of coffee. “This is Pearl, my baby,” she introduced the last of her “jewels.” “Pearl is the sweetest.”
    Pearl’s name was as fitting as Jade’s. She had pale silk hair, dark gold lashes and brows, wide blue eyes, and skin the palest shade of pink—translucent, almost. Pearl, about ten, I guessed, ate with the boarders.
    “You’re pretty,” she smiled at me.
    “Thank you,” I glowed, happy for a kind word.
    Talk cascading from her lips, Mrs. Cranford had ushered us through supper. She was in the kitchen now.
    “If you like that type,” Jade grinned, clearly conscious of her own superiority.
    The girls, now joined by the boarders, began to discuss me as freely as they had inspected me.
    “She’s prettier than you,” Pearl told Jade.
    “Think so, Dave?” Jade asked.
    “My hair is blacker than hers,” Opal patted her own black mane.
    “Hers has got a little red in it where the light shines on it,” one of the men grinned at Jade.
    “She’s mighty skinny,” Ruby said, her non-skinny bust and hips very prominent as she walked around the table.
    “A mite skinny,” one of the men agreed.
    Industriously, I chased peas with a fork. My hands shook, and the peas eluded me. David looked at my hands.
    “Skinny legs,” Jade said.
    “Don’t you have no sun in Alabamy?” one of the men asked.
    “Of course,” I looked at him in surprise.
    “Yore skin don’t look like the sun ever touched it.”
    “Oh, I wear a hat to keep from freckling,” I explained.
    “Good thing the girls take after their daddy,” Jade said. She was standing behind David. Suddenly, she rumpled his hair.
    His face had been red. Now it whitened. “Will-you-get your big hands off me!” he said.
    Rising from the table, he grabbed Davene. “Let’s go, Sue,” he said.
    Jade howled with laughter. “Don’t worry, Dave,” she said. “I like big, dark, ugly men. I was just trying to make her jealous.”
    “Jade, behave yourself!” Mrs. Cranford came into the room.
    “You’re mean!” Pearl said. “You’re the meanest woman in the world!”
    “Pays to be mean, baby,” Jade stooped to hug her. “I got four husbands that way.”
    “You didn’t keep them,” Ruby said.
    “You never managed to get even one.”
    “Mama, if she don’t leave here, I will!” Ruby began to cry.
    “Jade, I’ll thrash the hide off your back if you cause any more trouble,” Mrs. Cranford said and went to get a pot of fresh coffee.
    “All right, Mama.” Jade was surprisingly meek.
    “I’m leaving this place tonight!” David said as soon as we were in our room.
    “You’ve stayed two months,” I begged. The bus hadn’t been conducive to rest and after thirty-six hours, I thought I’d die if I had to take another step.
    “They never acted this way before.”
    Davene was asleep, her head rolling on his shoulder. Sharon leaned against me, whimpering. “I’m tired, Mother.”
    “Of course you are tired,” David said, and putting Davene on the bed, he began to undress Sharon.
    Too exhausted to worry and too tired to be more than numb at seeing David again, I was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. I don’t think I moved all night.
    The next day was Saturday, and there was no work. David left early to look for a house in Welch. “I’ve never been so dirty,” I told Mrs. Cranford. There hadn’t been bathing facilities last night, but exhaustion had