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“I think it’s time you got properly settled here.” Odessa suggests one morning over breakfast.
Allison looks up from her nearly finished toast with a quizzical but hopeful expression. She picks up her paper pad and pen from beside her and starts writing.
It doesn’t take long before Allison holds up the neatly penned question ‘What do you mean?’
Allison can be a surprisingly good conversation partner, considering her lack of ability to speak. At first, Odessa had anticipated her conversations with Allison to include a lot of waiting for Allison to finish writing. It was a bit like that at first, Allison didn’t seem used to having to write instead of speak, and got pretty frustrated by it at times. But she dedicated herself to learning how to write quickly while keeping her words readable with such a single-minded determination that she achieved it in no time.
“What I mean is you’ve been sleeping on the couch for the past two weeks and you’re constantly rearranging it. You deserve a more comfortable bed. And I’d like for all the cushions to stay in their proper places again.”
‘I always put them back after breakfast!’ Reads the next sheet Allison holds up. She’s smiling playfully, which is a relief to Odessa. She’s doesn’t know why she keeps assuming Allison to be an emotional, fragile little thing when she’s proven herself to be anything but that at least ten times. It probably has something to do with her not being able to speak, and the victimised state she turned up in. Although all evidence points to her vulnerability that one night being situational, Odessa can’t help but feel an intense sympathy and protectiveness every time she looks at Allison’s deep neck wound.
“Yeah, well,” Odessa grumbles, standing up to clear her plate and watching as Allison follows suit despite not being quite finished yet, “The sofa might have been fine for your first few days here, but now you’re planning to hang around I’ve been feeling increasingly mean about getting into my own comfy bed at night and knowing you’re stuck sleeping downstairs.”
Allison smiles and rolls her eyes while she does her part of the washing up in the sink, as if to say ‘Fine! Just to make you feel better!’ But Odessa can tell she’s pleased with the way she almost dances about the kitchen, a surprising reaction for someone who hates washing up as much as Allison. It takes five minutes at most when nobody’s dragging their feet about it, and once they’re finished Allison practically prances her way into the sitting room to convert her makeshift sofa bed back into a regular sofa for the final time.
Odessa helps her, which is unusual, because she prefers to let Allison sort herself out while she gets ready making sure that her plans for the day are organised, including both managing the salon and preparing for the conclaves. But today is a Monday, and the salon is always closed on a Monday, meaning that for Odessa it has always served as a long expanse of nothing to do. It’s always given her some valuable free time in the morning to rethink over plans for protests, to make sure that they’ll stay as peaceful as possible, and will achieve as much as possible while leaving as few people damaged as possible. The last thing they need is for more people to end up in a state like Allison’s, and Odessa doesn’t mind sacrificing a bit of her free time to do all in her power to ensure nobody will- it’s not like she has much else to fill the time with anyway.
But with Allison around, Odessa has been increasingly getting the feeling that is about to change. Having another person in your living space will undeniably give you more to do, especially when that person is a woman who has shown herself to be rather outgoing, to put it mildly. No doubt it’s an improvement from the listless haze Allison floated about the house in during her first few first days there, not entirely sure what to do with herself until Odessa gave her a job and a living wage. She isn’t about to start neglecting the movement to frolic about with Allison on the weekends, but it does mean she’ll probably have to start making a concentrated effort to get in some of the private planning time she can usually drift into.
While Allison fluffs up and relocates the cushions which actually belong on the sofa back to their rightful places, Odessa takes the small horde of them which Allison has ‘collected’ from about the house, and goes through the process of putting them all back exactly where they came from- seriously, how many temporary pillows does one woman need? Allison shoots her a few dazzling smiles as they work, exuding gratefulness, and Odessa finds it hard to look away. There’s something about Allison that is just so enchanting, as if she’s genuinely happy to be doing something mundane with you. It’s no wonder the girls at the salon have taken such an instant liking to her. When she isn’t moping over dishes or gearing up for a fight, her good mood is infectious.
“There.” Odessa announces, looking over her newly put together living room with satisfaction, “Now the house is back to having just two bedrooms in it again!”
Allison walks up to stand beside her, as if surveying the room from Odessa’s vantage point might alter her perspective on it too. She really has done a good job of putting things back together, it seems even with how agitated she was when Odessa walked her back to the house the first night she arrived, she had payed close attention to the layout of the room, because she put everything back in its rightful place with such finesse.
She turns to Allison, “I know we just got this done, but should we get started on your room now? We don’t want to leave it for the rest of the day or we’ll be stuck rushing around to get it ready for you to go to bed tonight.”
‘I’m happy to get started now.’ Allison writes quickly. Odessa isn’t sure if it’s because Allison genuinely enjoyed sorting out the downstairs, or if she’s just trying to stay in her good graces as thanks for keeping her here, but either way Odessa appreciates the positive work ethic.
Odessa starts up the stairs and Allison trails behind, “I don’t think you have much moving in to do, but I’ll show you your room and we can put the covers on your bed.”
While they ascend the steps to the top floor which Allison has seldom investigated until now, it strikes Odessa how easily calling it ‘your room’ had rolled off her tongue. That spare bedroom at the end of the hall has rarely been used, unless one of Odessa’s family came over for a visit. She’s always kept it clean, so she feels a little guilty about not inviting Allison to stay in it the night she arrived. It was quite late then, nothing in the room was ready, and the next few days were all dedicated to getting Allison settled into her new job as a cleaner, but there were evenings once they got home that could have been dedicated to it.
They reach the top of the landing, and Odessa leads Allison into the last of three doors. It’s hanging open already because living alone has left Odessa without needing to close it for privacy’s sake, so she shows Allison inside without any dramatic moment of reveal. That’s probably for the best considering the spare bedroom’s barren interior.
Apart from having an extra bed and a bedside table dragged into it, the room has stayed as bland and undecorated as the day Odessa moved in. The carpet is cream and the walls are yellow, because it’s the sixties and everything is yellow. Looking back, Odessa finds it hard to pinpoint the exact moment in time when jaundice came into fashion. It has not, as her mother had suggested when Odessa first moved in, been prepared for a child. Instead, it’s served as a guest room with a bit of extra storage mixed in. Its blandness lends it well to that purpose; it could be anyone’s bedroom. Odessa’s family have never complained about it during their occasional stay overs at least.
She might have to pause family visits while Allison stays with her, though. There won’t be enough space for one thing. That isn’t the only problem. The other (quite possibly much bigger) problem is one of what they refer to in the civil right meetings as optics. No matter how much she wishes she could, it’s impossible for Odessa to ignore the subtle suspicion with which her family regards her unmarried lifestyle. They never openly chastise her for it, nobody wants to ruin the perfectly amicable atmosphere of an infrequent whole family get together, but it’s always bubbling just below the surface. Revealing that she’s letting another woman cohabitate with her would only stoke the flame of that fire. Odessa doesn’t like to think about the possibility of being ‘outed’ like that, especially considering she is absolutely not a queer.
Allison walks inside slowly. She scans the space, taking in every blank wall and pulled loop on the dusty carpet. She gets to the window and to Odessa’s surprise Allison appears to be looking at the frame itself rather than the view, almost like she’s savouring it. A room all to herself- Odessa doesn’t know if Allison has ever had something like that before. Judging from Alison’s account, she came from a big family “up North” but refused to say anything else on the matter. Odessa didn’t pry any further in the interest of not driving Allison away, but from the two sentences of explanation she had permitted Odessa to know, nothing quite added up. Judging from Allison’s appearance and overall demeanour, she is a deeply traumatised woman who has come from a very hard life, not that she wants quick to admit that. But her story would have you believe that her life before ending up in Dallas was a mere footnote.
“I’ll go and get the bedding out of the airing cupboard,” Odessa says, not wanting to get too wrapped up in questioning Allison’s backstory again. She’s done that plenty enough since the day they met, and besides, they have work to do.
Allison nods and Odessa turns on her heel and leaves. She trots quickly along the short corridor to the bathroom, gathers the freshly washed, plain white bedding, and strides back in probably less than ten seconds. Allison perks up from the sitting position she must have just settled into on the bed once Odessa renters the room, and scribbles something quickly onto her paper pad. She holds it up with a wry smile: ‘Couldn’t you let me sit here for just one minute?’
“Nope.” Odessa responds to the silent question without missing a beat. She urges Allison up onto her feet, and hands her the bundle of sheets. “Could you make the bed?”
She’s careful to phrase it as a question and not a demand. For all she knows, nobody ever taught Allison how to make her own bed, and if that’s the case she doesn’t want to make (what would be for Allison) an unreasonable demand.
Fortunately, Allison must have picked up the information somewhere along the way, because she gets straight to it without a fuss. In moments like these, Odessa wonders why she has such a hard time believing Allison’s story. She knows how to look after herself, she can read, she can write, her understanding of social cues in impeccable. So what if she wants to spend some time away from her family? Odessa lives miles away from hers. Even the slice on her neck could have been a random attack instead of the result of ongoing maltreatment. Black women such as Allison- such as herself- are victimised at random all of the time, it’s one of the big reasons why they have the movement! And a woman as strong willed as Allison has shown herself to be is bound to draw the ire of violent racists.
But then she’ll catch a glimpse of the faded scars peppering Allison’s arms as she shakes out the blanket and all the doubt comes creeping back. Those small cuts all over her body look to be from prolonged abuse, but the gash on her neck- that’s clearly extremely recent. Her varying injuries could have been caused by different people entirely. Or perhaps it was all from the same people, who eventually tired of hurting her and decided to finish the job. God knows who stitched her back up, and why.
She could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time though, exactly as she’s claimed. Odessa can’t see any reason why Allison would lie about that, unless of course she feels misplaced shame about whatever happened to her. As if what she’d suffered in the past, whatever it was, was somehow her fault. It makes Odessa’s blood boil how there’s so much self blame in victims, possibly including Allison.
Odessa lets out a long sigh of irritation as she forces herself to let go of the thought and return to the issue at hand. It isn’t easy trying to figure out what Allison may or may not have been through. One moment she’ll be keeping the salon in pristine condition, the next she’ll be almost burning the kitchen down because she doesn’t understand how the cooker works.
It’s done in under an hour with the two of them working together on such a small space. Allison laid down the blanket and disappointedly positioned her single pillow against the headboard, leaving Odessa to grumble “I’ll get you more,” as a placating remark while she put the metal rails and shelves together on the closet which she got god knows how long ago. It gives Allison space to hang up the new clothes Odessa had taken her to buy the day after she arrived. She watches with interest as Allison takes her leather jacket and skintight leggings and puts them with painstaking care at the very back of the closet on the top most shelf. Odessa probably would have simply thrown them away if they were her uncomfortably tight clothes which she never intended to wear again. But clearly Allison wants to hold onto them, perhaps as a scrap of nostalgia, or as a reminder of what she had survived.
Everything else gets hung up with considerably more cheer, or it could only seem that way because almost every single article of clothing Allison bought is accentuated with yellow. As Odessa discovered that day she took Allison down into town to buy her the necessary outfits, sanitary products, and toiletries, she really has a liking for warm colours. It’s not like Odessa is in any position to judge, considering that she is a woman whose wardrobe consists almost entirely of the colour blue. She’d pointed out that their colour coding made them almost complete opposites, and Allison seemed surprisingly happy to be coordinated with her similarly monochromatic friend.
“I think that’s everything,” Odessa says once Allison has finished unloading her second plastic bag of belongings. She doesn’t expect to sound quite so anxious when she asks, “You like your room?”
Allison turns to face her with another one of those heart stopping smiles, and a page which reads, ‘I love it!’
Odessa thanks god for that. She didn’t expect Allison to be overly critical or picky, especially since she is being allowed to live here for free, but if she did have a problem with anything then Odessa would reluctantly spend more time sorting it out for her. It’s not like this job took long or was at all laborious, excluding the putting together of the closet which she had lost the manual for five years ago, but house work is exceptionally boring. Before Allison moved in, all Odessa ever had to do was a bit of light dusting thanks to her dedication to never making a mess of her own home. Since then, and even with Allison doing her fair share, everything has taken a lot more rearranging and tidying up.
It’s not like her weekends have ever been fun, but at least they were mindful. It’s something she has clearly underestimated the need for when in between weeks of battling to change the backwards laws they live under. She hopes Allison’s company will have an overall positive effect on her life, but if it only makes her home life more stressful Odessa might get driven completely insane.
Sometimes, Odessa doesn’t understand why she won’t give into the ever-present temptation to gather all the cash she’s earned, sell the salon, and buy a nice, cosy house up North in a neighbourhood of people who don’t want her dead quite as badly. It’s not like anyone in Dallas will miss her particularly. Sure, she has a good relationship with Raymond, but Raymond gets along with everyone. She could even lower the price for some of her fellow activists so they can keep meeting up there. It would give her a longer journey if she wants to visit her parents, but she already makes time to do that so rarely that they probably wouldn’t notice the difference.
She is abruptly pulled out of that negative thought spiral by a hand appearing on her shoulder. It’s Allison. Having now been noticed, she smiles and holds out her notepad. On it are written the words ‘Thank you for letting me stay’ in neat, careful handwriting. It looks so different from the rushed, shakily scrawled words with which Allison presented the basic information about herself the night she arrived.
Odessa reads over the sentence carefully, then looks at up Allison. She’s giving Odessa a look of appreciation that borders on admiration. The answer becomes clear to her in that expression. That’s why she will never be able to bring herself to leave. If she did, there would one less person out there fighting to help people like Allison.
“No problem, honey.” Odessa reassures her, “It’s a pleasure to have you here.”
Allison hesitates, then in a blink and you’ll miss it moment, she pulls Odessa in for a quick hug before releasing her and going over to sit down on her new bed, with a look of almost embarrassment. Odessa blinks, stunned; she doesn’t remember the last time someone hugged her. It must have been on one of her last family visits, her mother is always quick to try to hold her even when Odessa squirms away with annoyance, never having quite gotten out of that embarrassed teenager phase when it comes to such audacious displays of affection. She pulls herself together as fast as she can, adamant that she won’t let Allison see how deeply that affected her.
Odessa follows Allison over and sits down next to her, so close that their hands brush against each other. She thinks Allison will probably like that, and she hopes she will understand that it’s as close as Odessa can get to hugging her back at the moment. Fortunately, Allison seems to get it.
“We’ve got the rest of the day free now,” Odessa utters, “What would you like us to do with it?”
Allison takes out her notepad and pauses. Then she shudders with a silent chuckle and writes ‘You can always take me out shopping for extra pillows.’
Odessa leans back, signalling that she is quite settled here at home for now.
“God damn it, Allison.” She whispers with what she hopes Allison reads as affection.
Allison leans back to the same angle beside her, and they watch out the window silently. It’s a bright day, mired in the hot Dallas sun which Allison hasn’t yet acclimatised to, without a single cloud in sight. As nice as it looks, Odessa can’t help but keep being pulled back to the little oasis they’ve set up together in this room, and she wonders if she would be content to stay here forever.