“Lord, I know you didn’t walk up in my house to shush a grown woman,” her mother said. She was still on her knees in front of Mrs. Finley, but she had stopped pinning the lace hem in place.
Mrs. Finley’s mouth was frozen in the shape of an O.
“Myron, what’s going on?” Hazel said, placing her quilting to the side and rising from her seat.
“What on earth is this boy doing here?” Mrs. Finley said, emerging from her stupor.
Della sighed. “That’s Hazel’s sweetheart. We know him, Mrs. Finley.”
“But I don’t. And I don’t want him here.” Mrs. Finley hugged her chest as if she were Eve in the Garden, suddenly nude and exposed. “Get him out. I want him out of this shop.”
Della raised her eyebrows. Hazel couldn’t help admiring how her mother was able to embody contempt, albeit restrained, even from her diminutive position on the floor, head bent upward toward the white woman. “Pardon?” she said.
“Mama,” Hazel said warningly.
“Pardon?” her mother repeated, louder now, standing up to meet Mrs. Finley at eye level.
“We’ll go outside on the porch,” Hazel said, turning toward the door.
“No!” All three women started at the urgency in Myron’s voice. “I’m sorry, but I think your mama should hear this,” he said.
Hazel’s heart seemed to drop into her stomach. She reached for him. “What’s going on, love?”
“This boy can’t be in here,” Mrs. Finley said, her voice rising hysterically. She seemed disoriented by Della’s reaction, confused by the upset of power dynamics in the parlor she had visited so often. “I don’t want him here,” she repeated.
For a moment, the shop was still. Della and Mrs. Finley’s eyes were locked in a standoff, Hazel holding her breath. No one moved.
Then Myron dropped to one knee.
Mrs. Finley screamed.
“Lord on earth,” Della shouted, waving a hand to silence her. “Can’t you see he proposing? White folk don’t do this?”
Hazel looked down at Myron, realizing in a dazed way that he’d been holding his right hand behind his back since entering the parlor. Now he brought forth a tiny crimson lacquered box. Held it up to her.
The fog that had overwhelmed Hazel when she first met Myron in Stanley’s deli now wrapped around her again like a heavy quilt. And even though they did not own a record player, Hazel swore she could hear the unmistakable voice of Memphis Minnie.
She ignored all else but him. Ignored Mrs. Finley in her periphery, shouting something and clutching her pearls. She even ignored her mother throwing strips of lace into a basket with angry finality and directing Mrs. Finley to get the hell out of her shop if she was so afraid of Black love.
Hazel couldn’t hear Myron’s words over the music playing in her head. But she did not need to. She saw his mouth moving fiercely. It seemed like he was speaking an avalanche of words. She heard not a one.
The red box was light as a baby bird in her hands. Hazel held it for a moment, watching Myron’s lips. The front door slammed; Mrs. Finley must have gone. Hazel passed the box to her mother without looking away from Myron’s face, feeling relief sweep over her once it was out of her hands. She hadn’t even bothered to open it, look inside. See the pear-shaped sapphire there. That would come later. Instead, Hazel swept up the fabric of her skirt, fell to her knees in her mother’s front room, and took Myron’s face in her hands. Choking back sobs, she scolded him. Berated him. Told Myron he was a damn fool to waste all that money on a ring. Didn’t the man know she was his? Didn’t the man know he was hers? Didn’t he know this fact if no other?