"High Yellow"

Published in the A Hell of A Woman Anthology, Busted Flush Press, 2007

Excerpt

Patricia Thomas' mama said everyone needed a fixer in their life, and from the moment she met Desmond McCauley, Patricia knew he would be hers.

She stepped down from the streetcar at Connecticut and Calvert into a wall of September heat so heavy and humid you could carve big chunks out of it and swallow them whole. Despite its pretensions, Washington D.C. in 1957 was a sleepy Southern town where summer didn't end until October. Even Congress had the sense not to come back until then.

She tried to keep an unhurried pace as she walked the three blocks to Oyster School. She didn't want to sweat on the first day of the new season. She'd dressed carefully in a crisp, black and white sleeveless outfit she snagged in Hecht's bargain basement. She'd ironed starch into it, but in this heat it wouldn't last. She was wearing black pumps, and carried a little black bag. Her thick, dark glossy hair, good hair, was held back with a wide red band.

As she rounded the corner, she nodded coolly at the Negro man who stepped to the side and doffed his hat. Afterwards she savored the little thrill that ran through her. Likewise when she stopped into People's Drugs for a comb, and the woman at the cash register with chocolate skin made sure their hands never touched when she dropped Patricia's change in her palm. She smiled. With her dark hair and eyes, pale skin, and delicate features, Patricia was passing. She looked like an exotic beauty—maybe Oriental, maybe Italian—but definitely not colored. High yellow, they called it.

All content © Libby Fischer Hellmann.